


When you were sweet

by jamjar



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, The Academy Is...
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-18
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 04:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamjar/pseuds/jamjar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How William Beckett spent his summer vacation that time he turned into a girl (or why teenage romantic stupidity transcends gender and doesn't stop even when you're no longer a teenager).</p><p>Reposted from lj, now with a  fixed Chapter Two</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

[Header and Bonus content](http://jamjar.livejournal.com/105647.html)  


Bill wakes up, rolls on to his side and thinks oh, girl, before going back to sleep.

He wakes up again a little later with Mike banging on the door and yells, "I'm up!", struggling to sit. The blankets fall down to his waist and yeah, breasts, that difference in waist and hips and even before he kicks the covers completely off, he knows what he's going to find. Girl.

He yawns, stretches and gets out of bed, finds his T-shirt from last night, pulls it on and opens the door before Mike can start knocking again. "I'm awake," he says.

Mike's hand is raised and he says, "Yeah, I've heard that befo—Bill?"

"Yeah." Bill rolls his shoulders, scratches the back of his neck.

"You look... different," Mike says. He sounds strange, like he thinks he's missing something.

"Well, yeah," Bill says. He looks at Mike, brows drawing together a little. Is Mike usually this slow in the mornings? "I'm a girl. Woman. I should probably say woman now, I'm in my twenties." He wonders if the clothes he wore last time was a girl still fit. He's probably a different size now. He can't tell if his breasts are any bigger, so he can probably still get away without a bra, which is one less thing to think about.

"You're a girl," Mike echoes. "What?"

Bill looks at him, then reaches out and smacks him on the back of his head. "Hey! You know this is a thing I do sometimes. I told you all, when you joined the band."

"I thought you were out of it!"

Bill rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. "Because that's what people do when they're high, they go around telling people that they might randomly turn into a girl." He frowns at Mike and says, "Tell the other guys what's happened, I'm going back to bed."

He realises later, when Travis jumps on his bed and says, "Hey, show me your tits!" that he should have been a little more specific on what other guys Mike should tell.

"So this happens to you a lot?" Travis asks, taking his hands off Bill's chest reluctantly.

"Not a lot," Bill says. "Twice, including this time. That's not a lot. And I told you about this."

"Dude, we were wasted." Travis's hands go up to touch Bill's breasts again and Bill smacks them away.

"They haven't changed in the last thirty seconds, Travis."

"They might have!" Travis leans back, casual and grinning. "Fuck, man. So, you taken them out for a spin?" He gives a grin that's lecherous and utterly unnecessary because his tone is practically feeling Bill up under the bandstand as it is.

"It's—fuck, it's 10am! I just wanna sleep in." Bill sighs and makes the effort to get his mind awake. "I appreciate you, know, taking this all so well and not freaking out or anything—"

"Not like it's a big change," Travis says.

Bill smiles and says, "If I'd had any problem at all with kicking you in the balls before, I have even less now. Just so you know."

"Bitch." And that's why Bill loves him, because Travis says that exactly the same way he's always said it. He's still kind of vaguely disgruntled at being awake, still in kind of a bad mood, but the kind of bad mood where he can be persuaded out of it. Travis is still looking at him kind of speculatively, and Bill smirks back. It's good and that nice warm feeling twists in his stomach, turns to something familiar, and—yeah. It's been a while since he got laid, longer still since he got laid as a girl, and Travis is there and he's _Travis_ and Bill's pretty sure it'd be a good thing. He kind of knows what to expect, because it's not like it'd be the first time he's fooled around with Travis, and he kind of doesn't, because it's not like he's fooled around with him like this. And he sort of knows what to look for, what he wants and what works when he's getting laid as a woman, but it's got to be different doing this with Travis. It's not the first time he's thought this, felt that same little kick-yourself pangHe should have fucked around more when he was a girl back then, with more people, instead of getting focussed on one.

Not going to make that mistake this time, Bill thinks. He smiles a little at Travis and Travis raises an eyebrow and says, "So you know what I'd do if I was a girl?"

"Try to pick up girls?"

"Fuck, four breasts minimum, yes. But if there weren't any around..." He puts his hand on Bill's thigh and strokes it.

"Wow, I'm flattered," Bill says,. deadpan and flat as Ryan Ross "You make me feel so special." He spreads his legs a little wider, though, leans back against the covers and smiles an invitation, because it's not like hooking up with Travis is ever a bad thing.

Travis looks surprised for a moment, then his smile turns from lech to filthy, and when he reaches forward this time his hands go to Bill's hips instead of his breasts, pulling him forwards slowly, deliberately. His hands feel bigger than usual on Bill's hips, even though Bill knows he's not actually much different in size as a girl. It's a nice thought, though. One he can work with.

Travis laughs and says, "This is so fucking weird. You're you, but you're a girl."

Bill opens his eyes wide and puts a hand to his chest, gasping dramatically. "Travie, you—you do know what to do with girls, right? I just assumed you did, but if there's something you want to—"

"Know more about girls then you do," Travis says, in a low grumble and his hands stretch, edging up and mmm, yeah, good hands.

"I kind of doubt that—" Bill says, then Travis kisses him and Bill feels Travis's hands, his mouth, and oh, still good. He'd forgotten how much he liked this, getting a good slow burn going through every inch of his body before letting it focus. Travis kisses like he always does, which isn't a shock -Bill's seen him kiss women before, seen him kiss men and Travis has a one-size-fits all style of kissing, but man, it works for him. Means that Bill can think, can focus on this as kissing-Travis, not kissing-as-a-girl.

"I love this," Bill says. "I could make out for hours, seriously."

"So you turned into a girl," Travis says. "Or Pete Wentz." He pulls Bill on to his lap and says. "Hey, you know, I could make out for hours. I just choose not to." One hand goes down to the front of Bill's jeans, undoes the top button, and leaves his hand there. _You wanna?_

It's been a while since Bill fucked as a girl, but Travis is familiar and Bill rolls his eyes and pushes Travis on to his back.

 

 

__

* * *

_  
_

 

 

_Bill's got a goal here. His plan is to get laid, because he's spent the past three days learning to love himself, but he really, really wants to try it with someone else. He's seventeen and he absolutely refuses to have less sex as a girl than he does as a guy. It's taking a stand for equal rights and also kind of embarrassing if he doesn't. He's not looking for romance, just someone that he likes enough, that his body likes enough, that his first time as a girl shades more to Playboy (or at least Harlequin) than Judy Blume. Meet up, talk for as long as it takes to show that yes, Bill is the kind of girl to put on a first date and wow, what a coincidence, my house is right here._

_He's spent about two hours staring at himself in front of the mirror, trying on different outfits. Skirts and dresses because he can, camisoles and halter-necks and babydoll T's, but it's mostly just an excuse to look at himself, to track the differences. It's not narcissism, because like this, as a girl? Bill isn't exactly his own type. He's hot, and it is kind of a turn-on, seeing himself as a herself, but that's because it's him inside there). Maybe it's the way he looks familiar, like one of his cousins, dark hair, hazel eyes, tall._

_Not his type, exactly, but still pretty fucking hot, and he's listened to enough girls complain that he's only a little disappointed that he doesn't really need a bra. He's not sure what he was expecting exactly. Him with tits, and he looks like himself, only not. His chin is different and his forehead, and that's weirder in some ways than the rest of it because he wasn't expecting that. He was prepared, knew this was coming and he'd been looking forward to it, and it was still a shock, waking up and finding himself different._

_He kind of wishes his parents were here this summer, but he's mostly glad they're not. He's got a credit card, a collection of family stories about What Happened When This Happened To your Aunt_ / _Uncle_ / _Mother_ / _Brother_ / _Great-Grandfather and he's got his own plans. No-one knows if it's a genetic anomaly, some kind of weird gift or a family curse, but everyone knows you make the most of it when it happens._

_"Bill, you ready?" Adam says through the doors._

_"Almost," Bill says._

_"Because Jason says you take as much time getting ready as a girl as you do as a guy, and it's not like you have to try as hard."_

_Bill would bet money that the last bit came from Adam personally, but it's maybe true. There's more preparation as a girl, but Bill's spent most of his life as a boy. He knows from seventeen years of experience that he can try his hardest and still get a "I don't think of you that way," or "Oh, wow. No." no matter what he does._

_But now he has this, a chance to feel it from the other side, to figure out what it's like, how it works._

_The ultimate summer vacation_

 

__

* * *

_  
_

 

It's kind of tempting to stay in bed, but it's not like the first time Bill turned into a girl. He's got to try and get something sorted out for work and -oh, Tony needs to know if he doesn't already, and someone get the camera away from Jack until they're talked about this and he needs to figure out if he can still sing at his usual range enough to record and make sure Sisky knows not to go into too much detail about Bill's summer of XX-chromosomes, thank god that Sisky's the only one who was around both times, check that Mike's not freaking out too much and—

It kind of sucks to have to deal with this now. Not that he has any problem with this, but he should at least get a day to readjust and ask his mom to send over some of his old clothes. If they still fit. He thinks he might have gone up a size, or down one. Something, because his hips seem more there, and he's pretty sure his breasts were a little smaller.

They call a band meeting, and it takes a while to get the basics out the way; for Tony to stop saying that this never happens with Fall Out Boy or The Hush Sound—which seems unfair, since he doesn't actually know that, it might not have happened in public—and to establish that yes, Bill wasn't drunk or stoned when he told them all about this. Or sometimes he was, but that didn't mean he was lying. Once they've got through all that, though, they get back to the important stuff. Bill doesn't have too much trouble singing at his normal pitch, nothing that can't be fixed in production. It's easier on some songs than others, and it takes more thought than usual, but it's good enough that they can work with it right now, trying out new songs, new arrangements, preparing for the tour.

"We could get Patrick in on this, for production," Mike says. "If you want to keep it in the family."

"In the family? Are we the emo band mafia? Because that'd be kind of cool," Sisky says. "Hey, maybe that can be our next TAI TV?"

It's not perfect. Bill has to fake his normal voice and kick Jack off from behind the camera for a few clips for Buzznet, remind his band and Gym Class that don't tell anyone includes everyone else, yes, that means Joe too, and Bob, and the other Bob, and the other Andy and—of course not Pete, and if you don't put the phone down right this minute— But on the plus side, he's got his band, his people, and Travis is still the same, maybe checking out Bill's ass, but still talking to him about the hot lighting tech chick at their last show. It's not like last time, when being a girl was new and he was sixteen and it was summer, no school, only a couple of friends outside his family that knew, and he could create a whole new him for the summer, no responsibilities or expectations and no need to think about the consequences.

That might be progress or some kind of sign of maturity, because in retrospect, no-consequences was a delusional concept. At least it's happening now and not when they're in the middle of touring. It's just promo work and working on the next record, staying at semi-catered apartments that feel like Bill's mom's friend's timeshare. It's weird, not quite a hotel and not quite a house. Not bad, but Bill likes going with the gang to hang out with Gym Class at their hotel, where they can get room service without feeling lazy and vaguely guilty.

"They're being comped," Travis says when Bill snatches the hotel peanuts out of his hand.

"So? That means I should still let the hotel charge their ridiculous prices for peanuts?" Bill says.

Mike rolls his eyes and throws a pillow at Travis. "Leave it, it's like a moral point with him."

"You lie! My boy doesn't have any morals, right?" Travis looks at Bill, eyes big and is-there-a-Santa-Claus? before putting a hand on his chest, hunching in and looking betrayed. "You do? Bill, how could you do this to me? All this time, you had morals and principles and shit?"

Bill rolls his eyes, because it's stupid, but it is also the principle of the thing and hotels charge stupid prices. "I'm going to the convenience store."

He comes back with peanuts, macadamia white chocolate cookies for Sisky, chips, dips and something with natural blue raspberry flavour, and that so bizarre -natural blue? natural raspberry? does GM stuff count as natural additives? when he gets out of the elevator, walks down the corridor and almost trips over someone kneeling on the floor. He gets out a "Sorry, didn't see you—" before the road hazard looks up and it's Patrick.

He's not expecting it, so his first thought is, "Oh, fuck." Followed quickly by, "Maybe he won't remember me, it's been a while, maybe he won't recognise me." Which is stupid because it's not like he's changed that much and besides, Patrick's expression pretty much says it all. He looks stunned, like someone just hit him over the head with a boulder with nails in, his eyes wide behind his glasses, his mouth open and shocked.

He looks good, too.

"Lily?" Patrick says.

Bill smiles and hopes it looks better than it feels. "Patrick! Hey. What are you doing here?"

"Me? I'm working, I'm in this band and—" he stops, shaking his head and then looks at Bill like he— Oh, yeah, and that's the reason, one of them, why Bill knew it was a bad idea to let Patrick see him, because it might lead to Patrick looking at him like that. Like he can't believe it's Lily, like he's not sure if he wants to believe it's her. He's staring at Bill and Bill's trying to remind himself that he saw Patrick less than a month ago, it's just Patrick looking pretty much exactly the same as the last time he saw him, when they talked about publicity shots and Optimus Prime versus Cyborg.

It's just that Patrick isn't looking at him like he's the guy Patrick tried to convince that he's wrong, all wrong over Starbucks' finest. Patrick is looking at him like—like he's looking at a girlfriend, like an ex-girlfriend. He's looking at Bill like someone's punched him in the gut and he's still winded, like he can't quite believe it His eyes keep tracking over Bill.

"I'm just visiting some friends," Bill says. "Staying here." He holds on to his arm at the elbow because he wants to—it'd be normal to hug Patrick, right? It's more of a thing if he doesn't. Bill should hug him. He wants to, and that's probably why he shouldn't, even though Patrick is right there and he could, he really could, right now when Patrick is still in shock and before he actually starts thinking, except that would probably be a really bad idea. He just kind of stands there and it's like being—no, it's worse than being fourteen again and still awkward from his growth spurt. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other and the silence is the loudest thing ever, so he has to say something. "It's, uh. You look good. Well." And that just makes him wince and wish he'd kept his mouth shut.

Patrick nods, his eyes still locked on Bill. "You, too. Your hair, it's. It's longer." And then there's more of that killer silence, the one that's like holding your hand against a stove in a game of chicken. He looks awkward and there's this space around him, next to him, that Bill should be in. It's wrong to be this close to Patrick and not stand next to him, his hand in Patrick's back pocket. Bill can't do that anymore, but maybe he can just hug him hello.

He goes to do it, but before he gets the chance Patrick kind of explodes without moving. "Lily, what the fuck?" and part of Bill thinks it's familiar, like when they argued before, and part of him is noting how Patrick's voice has changed. He didn't have that range before. It's impressive even if Bill's first reaction is to cross his arms defensively and shove Patrick at the same time. "Did you know I was going to be here?"

Bill fights the urge to yell back and the little voice that's reminding him how much he liked arguing with Patrick before, that's saying it'd probably be cathartic if Patrick pushed him against a wall, good for both of them, because that little voice is a dirty liar who just wants to get laid. So he's trying to think of something to say that isn't, "It's not my fault," or "I'm sorry," or anything that might lead to arguing or making up and will get Patrick to stop looking at him like that. His hands are clenched and his shoulders tense and his mouth right there, and before he can, there's a familiar weight across Bill's shoulders. It smells a little of hotel soap and pot, and Travis is draping himself across Bill's shoulder's like he always does, like no-one could reasonably expect him to stand up on his own.

"C'mon," Travis says. "You're missing the best bit of the movie. Three decapitations down." He notices Patrick. "Hey, Stump! Good to see you, but aren't you in Canada?"

Patrick looks at Travis, then Bill and Bill's not even thinking about how this looks because it's just Travis, just the way he rolls. Except Patrick is looking at them and yeah, it probably does send a different message when Bill's like this. It's just a moment, a second of inspiration like getting the hook for a song, and then Bill's smiling up at Travis and saying, "I'm just coming, baby."

Travis frowns at him, and Bill tries to develop telepathy, which fails because instead of playing along, Travis just goes, "What?"

Bill turns in to him, just a little, and Travis's free hand drops to his hip automatically which is proof that even if he's not telepathic, at least Bill knows Travis well enough to make this work. "I just ran in to an old friend," he says, gesturing at Patrick and pressing against Travis. It's not a hardship; Travis is warm and good to lean against anyway, and he smells familiar and comforting and it's good to be close to someone when he can feel this huge distance between him and Patrick.

"You're. I didn't know you." Patrick pulls himself together and says, "I didn't know you knew each other."

Travis opens his mouth and Bill steps on his foot and says, "Small world, I guess."

"Yeah." Patrick shoves his hands in his pockets and nods, sharp and jerky. "I've got to find my band. They're, uh. Pete said something about balconies and barbecues and I've got to." He shrugs and he's still looking at Bill like he can't stop. "Travis, Lily, I guess I'll see you around."

He turns around and Bill watches his back and it hits him like a sucker-punch, like it did the first time he changed back, that combination of wanting to touch him and being angry that he doesn't get to.

"Lily?" Travis says, one eyebrow raised.

"He knew me before. He didn't know it was me, but." Bill shrugs and folds one arm across his stomach.

"Lily? Is that your girl name?" Travis raises one eyebrow and says, "So he doesn't know..." He makes a gesture that's maybe either jerking off, an hourglass figure or naked octopus wrestling.

"It's not like I made an announcement: 'Hi, I'm the girl formerly known as William Beckett'," Bill says. "I only knew Patrick from around, you know?"

"So you gonna tell him now?" Travis voice is casual, no judgement, but Bill can feel his stomach flip like a Ukrainian gymnast.

"I was thinking not," he says. "I mean, if I tell Patrick, Patrick will tell Pete, and Pete will tell the internet." Which is mean and bitchy and probably not true, but it's as good a reason as any. "It's not a big deal, really. It's nothing."

"Nothing, huh?" Travis says. "So why are we dating?"

"It's just easier," Bill says. "You know, I don't want things to get complicated again."

"Complicated?"

"Not complicated," Bill says. "I just mean, you know. Confusing."

"We've only been dating five minutes and already you're lying to me?" he shakes his head and puts on a wounded expression. "You're a bad girlfriend, William Beckett." He looks at Bill, eyebrows raised, waiting for to explain but willing to let him shrug it off. "Best you'll ever get," Bill says. Travis has his arm around his shoulders and Bill's torn between shrugging it off and leaning in to it. "Fuck," he says, which probably kills his attempt at passing this off as no big deal, but really. "Fuck."

 

 

* * *

 

 

_He kind of knows Patrick, like he kind of knows a lot of people, enough that he feels okay with saying, "Hey, can you put your arm around me or something?"_

_"What?"_

_"There's this guy who keeps trying to talk to me and I just—" Bill waves a hand at the party behind him. "I just don't want to deal with him right now, because I'm going to come off like a total bitch and I really, really don't want to talk to him." Patrick's still looking at him, so Bill adds, "He's kind of stalking me. Not in a scary way, just in the way where I tell him I'm not interested and he thinks if he keeps asking me, I'll just give in. He's kind of whiny." He leans in. He only recently learnt what his limits are in his old body, and he forgot that they'd be different like this, so he leans on Patrick too. Patrick is nice and sturdy. Patrick is good. "He keeps asking me if I think I'm better than him, and really, I think I am, but I don't want to say that because it makes me sound like a vain bitch."_

_"Yeah?" Patrick says, and he puts his arm around Bill, like he's trying to keep Bill steady._

_"Yeah. Not because I'm cooler or more attractive, though I kind of think I am cooler and more attractive, but that's not why." Bill settles against Patrick, resting his head against Patrick's. "It's mostly because I'm not so selfish I'm going to ruin someone's good time by trying to make her feel like a bad person because she don't want to date me." He rubs his head against Patrick. "You have really soft hair."_

_"Thank you. I'm Patrick, by the way," Patrick says. He sounds kind of amused._

_"I know," Bill says, wondering why Patrick feels like he has to state the obvious. Then he shifts and he feels the shoes, the difference in weight and oh yeah, girl, someone Patrick's never met. "I'm Lily," he says. "Like the song."_

_"Which one?"_

_"Any of them. All of them."_

_Patrick smiles. Bill can see it, even though he's too close to see it properly, and he thinks, good mouth. He lets that thought drift for a while, because normally, he thinks things like that and then, kissing, sucking him off, licking his fingers, on neck, and now he thinks—he thinks kissing, licking his fingers, going down on him, Patrick's mouth on his neck, his breasts. Mmm. His stomach twists, but in a good way, and he thinks about maybe dragging Patrick off to a corner somewhere. It's good, thinking about it. Enjoyable._

_Patrick hums something vaguely familiar, and then it turns in to words. "Underneath the lantern, by the barrack gate, Darling I remember..."_

_Oh. Bill joins in, and it takes him a line or two to realise that his voice is pretty much the same. Higher, maybe, but he has no trouble harmonising at his old pitch. "...the way you used to wait. 'Twas there you whispered—"_

_Patrick's hand moves, like he's surprised, but he sticks with it for the first verse so they end together. Bill lifts his head and smiles at Patrick, and says, "You're really pretty. I'm thinking of dragging you to a dark room and taking advantage of you."_

_Patrick ducks his head and he's awkward, his arm around Bill suddenly tense. "Yeah, that's what all the girls say."_

_Bill frowns, because Patrick sounds like he's trying to joke. "Hey, don't act like I don't know what I'm talking about. I've hooked up with loads of really hot people, so I know pretty when I see it." Huh, that sounded better before he said it. " Do you think I'm shallow?"_

_"No, I just think you're a little wasted." Patrick's smiling, and he really does have a great mouth, so it's entirely understandable that Bill doesn't register what he's saying at first. It's distracting, smiling at Bill like that, wide and soft looking. Patrick licks his lips and the movement makes Bill pull himself together.(_

_Bill punches him in the shoulder. "I'm not drunk, I know what I'm saying. Okay, you give me your phone number right now!"_

_Patrick blinks at him. "What?"_

_Bill crosses his arms and they fit so nicely under his breasts, and he thinks that this and the hips, are the best part of being a girlt. "I am going to get your number and I'm going to call you tomorrow and prove that I'm not just coming on to you because I've had, like, two bottles of beer and a glass of punch. Punch, Patrick, and that was before anyone got a chance to spike it apart from me."_

 

 

_"I don't. I don't have a pen," Patrick says, looking almost exactly like a bird that just flew into a glass door_

 

 

_Bill rolls his eyes. "How do you ever get laid?" he says, looking around, finding a napkin and digging out a stub of pencil from his pocket. "Here, write it down."_

_Patrick writes down his number and Bill looks at it for a second, then puts it in his pocket. He feels kind of smug. It's not like he thought it'd be hard, hooking up as a girl, but Patrick doesn't act like he's used to giving his number out, and now Bill has it anyway. It's probably too soon to kiss him, but it feels even more important now not to be the kind of person that worries about that. Bill's almost going to, but he hears a crash from the other room and a familiar voice saying, "But I don't bend that way!" and he winces. "Got to go rescue my boy," Bill says. "It's the curse of being the cool older friend."_

_"Oh, okay," Patrick says, a little stiffly. He nods and looks awkward, maybe even a little embarrassed._

_"Patrick," Bill says, "I really, really want to—"_

_He leans in, just enough to press against Patrick a bit and then heads back to find Adam. He pulls him from a mass of teenagers, brushing crumbs off him and shaking his head._

_"Adam T. Siska, your mom—my mom's gonna kill me if you're drunk," he says. Adam smiles at him and Bill feels irritated and protective and wonders how much is hardwired into the body and how much is Adam's big and dammit, unfocussed eyes._

_Adam's hug makes Bill feel Salvation-Army sober in comparison, but he hugs him back and tries not to feel too smug over his first night out as a girl._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Bill's waiting for the piano to drop on his head for the rest of the day, and it still hasn't happened by the time he gets to bed. No Patrick storming in and saying, "You were Bill all along!" No Travis asking awkward questions like, "So what exactly happened between you?" Nothing.

His eyes feel gritty when he wakes, like he's wearing contacts for the Sixteen Candles video. He's not awake, but not tired either. Doesn't want to be up, doesn't want to be in bed and he's going to have to say something to his band before Travis does. Or Patrick.

Or Pete, Andy or Joe, and fuck, how much do they know? What's Patrick said? He gets in the shower and usually , this is fun time for him. Not just him getting off, but because he likes looking at his body, running his hands over his breasts, hips, everything. It's not even always about masturbation, but more that it's just nice to touch. He likes thinking that if he saw himself on the streets, he'd think the girl was hot.

Now, he's wondering what Patrick saw when he looked at him, at Lily. Longer hair, a couple inches taller, maybe. Was Lily nostalgia-pretty in Patrick's memory, hot as an ex or unappealing as a mistake? Or no difference, no change, like the six years didn't happen

Maybe he doesn't even remember. Maybe it's blurred and overwritten with other girls, so there's just something generic when Patrick thinks of him.

Maybe Bill should stop thinking about this before he starts singing that Alanis Morisette song. He gets out the shower, humming, dries off and finds a bathrobe before heading out to the main room. " _—older version of me, is perverted like me, would she—_ We're out of mousse," Bill says, stealing a croissant.

"We—have you been stealing my stash again? Bill, man, buy your own." Mike points at him with a butter knife, less a threat and more a sign of surrender.

Bill shrugs and says, "So Fall Out Boy are in town early. I ran in to Patrick in the hallway."

Sisky looks up and says, "That's... Fuck, Bill. What're you going to do?"

Which is dramatic enough to get everyone else raising their heads and looking at him. Bill shrugs and butters his croissant with moderate flair to help him fake casual convincingly.

"Something you need to tell us?" Mike says.

"The first time round, I sort of dated Patrick," Bill says. He holds his croissant up to eyelevel, surveys the slightly burnt gold, like he's giving serious consideration to if it needs more butter or jelly or something. Nutella. "I didn't want him to find out because it'd make things awkward."

"Nice one," Butcher says, raising his fist to knock against Bill's. "What?" He says when Bill just looks at him over his breakfast. "You did good. If I turned into a girl, Patrick would be in the top ten boyfriends." He drops his fist when Bill doesn't take him up on it and says, "So is there a problem? Did you tell him about you being you?"

"I thought about it, but I've decided to go with not telling him that his high school girlfriend is actually his old buddy, Bill," William says. "That kind of thing always plays out so much better in sitcoms then real life." He puts the croissant down and starts searching through the little jars, trying to decide between apricot-peach and grape.

"Yeah, but if we're gonna be hanging with them—"

"We're not. I'm not," Bill corrects. "You guys can. Just don't mention me."

"But what if he—"

"It's not like he's going to be tracking me down. He's not going to be stalking me," Bill says. He's pretty sure Patrick has no desire to see him again, ever, but he decides to go with, "It was a summer thing. It was years ago," as an explanation instead. And actually, these little jars the jelly comes in are fascinating, and he's reading the label because he really cares about how much fruit is there per ounce.

Sisky says nothing, in a way that makes Bill feel guilty and defensive, so he puts the little jar down a too hard. "What?"

"Nothing," Sisky says. Then, "You were kind of intense. That's just what it looked like to me."

"Everything's intense when you're sixteen," Bill says.

"Yeah, but you were kind of. A couple." And maybe he thinks that he wasn't clear enough, he adds, "Boyfriend and girlfriend."

Some day, Bill's going to have to take Adam T. Siska to one side and explain about how hard it is to pretend that something's not a big deal when people keep telling you how much it is. He probably doesn't have time for that now, so he settles for trying to look off-hand when he says, "It's not like he was the first guy I ever slept with," working to get the right tone of casual disregard.

And then, because his band likes to be smart at exactly the wrong moment, Chizz says, "What about Patrick?" He's got that smile, like he think's something's funny, but he's not a hundred per cent sure. "He wasn't your first, doesn't mean you weren't his."

"You're putting too much thought in to this," Bill says. "Teenage break-ups are not the end of the world."

"It just feels like it," Michael says. "What?" When Bill glares at him. "I'm just saying, first cut is deepest." He lowers his voice and puts on a serious expression. "Bill, did you break that boy's heart?"

It's a joke, but there's still a moment where Bill wants to say something, something like, "You think I meant for that to happen like it did?" or "I wasn't exactly laughing with joy when it ended either." He doesn't, settles for rolling his eyes and reaching for the Nutella.

He gets through breakfast by virtue of moaning, loudly and orgasmically around a mouth full of croissant and chocolate spread every time someone tries to talk to him. They split up after breakfast, Jack and the Butcher doing a TAI TV thing, Mike fleeing Bill's Meg Ryan impersonation. His expression alone makes Bill think that it's a good strategy, one he should definitely use again.

And then, because fate likes to mock him, is sitting up there somewhere pointing and laughing, when they turn on the TV, there's an interview with Fall Out Boy. Recorded last night, maybe. Patrick's wearing the same hat, same sweatshirt. Pete and Andy are getting into it about something, the kind of minor argument that's equal parts petty and grinning, Patrick's looking at them, Joe leaning across his back to get a better view. Bill sits forward a little, looking for signs. Patrick's not as obvious in his moods on TV as Pete is, but—it's hard to tell, but Pete's knee is against Patrick's, Joe's hand on his shoulder, Patrick's hat pulled down at the front, and the little bickering could be Andy and Pete running interference?

The interviewer says something about teenage romance and writing it after the age of sixteen, and Pete bounces it back with something about heartbreak that has her leaning forward and asking about theirs. Bill winces, because it's a familiar question and it still hits too close to the bone. They bounce it off with experience, a personal comment from Pete and then something more general, universal truths of love and broken hearts. It's nothing new, just Pete's usual references to his exes, and then the interviewer says something to Patrick. Pete opens his mouth, but patrick's speaking before Pete gets the chance to deflect the question.

"Probably because it's the first time," Patrick says, "So you've got no comparison and that's what you expect the next time you fall in love, and it really is the most in love you've ever been, it really is only time you've felt that bad."

"Yeah, it's like the worst you ever felt, right up to the next time you feel the worst you ever felt and then you're like, 'Wow, in retrospect that time before wasn't so bad," Pete says. His knee bumps against Patrick's.

It's smooth and easy, and it makes Bill's stomach clench, because Patrick's not sketching out bits from their current single in the air or talking about their latest collaboration, and he's smiling like it's mostly at himself and he's the joke that's funny for everybody else.

Bill's probably over-thinking or maybe even seeing what he wants to see, because as much as he doesn't want to admit it, he doesn't want Patrick to just brush him off. Her. Lily. It's not a nice thought, it's mean and kind of vindictive and _prideful_ , but it's not like the mess was entirely his fault, Patrick was at least half to blame, and he shouldn't get to shake this off either.

It's not the kind of logic you can share with anyone, the kind that'd have Ryan Ross or Pete Wentz calling you on teenage melodrama hypocrisy, but he hasn't let himself think about this for years, not like this, and it's like he's been restarted back to that point. Worse than that, because at the time, he thought he was okay, good, mature, _sane_. In retrospect, he was stupid or crazy or just really good at being wilfully blind.

 

 

"I guess when that happens, you kind of stop trusting yourself? Like, your own judgement." Patrick shrugs and his knee bounces a little, his fingers drumming against it. "I think that's why it's hardest the first time."

"At least until the next time," Pete adds, grinning at Patrick, at the camera.

Patrick gives—it's not even big enough to be a laugh, just a smile and him ducking his head down, while Joe leans over him to the camera, his hand on Patrick's shoulder, and says, "Not that we're bitter or anything."

And oh, that's it. Bill turns around and there's Sisky looking concerned and Michael looking like he's watching a tennis match, heard turning from Bill and the TV and back again. "Phone," Bill says.

"What?"

Bill rolls his eyes, leans over and digs in Michael's pockets, ignoring his "Hey!" and attempt at escape, pulling out his phone and scrolling through for Patrick's number.

"Hey?" Patrick says. "Michael?" He sounds like he's just woken up, like he hopes he doesn't have to.

"It's been—jesus, it's been years," Bill says. "So either you're over it or you're not, and if you haven't got over it in five years, I'm not taking the blame for your issues."

"Lil?" Rustling, the sound of Patrick sitting up and Bill can picture him, bedhead hair and reaching for his glasses. "What—why are you on Chislett's cell?"

"Like you'd have answered if I called you?"

"Why would you have my number? Why would you even want my number." All of Patrick's morning viciousness is there in his voice, but Bill shrugs it off.

"Eight weeks, Stumph. If I got over it so can you, without going on TV and acting like it—like I'm some evil bitch that scarred you for life, especially when I know you dated that girl Rose-something and then Anna and—"

"I didn't—I never said you were a bitch," Patrick. "And I'm really sorry that you find it upsetting for me to—you know, I can't do this right now. You don't get to call me at nine in the morning and yell at me anymore. You're not my girlfriend."

The stupid thing is, Bill knew that, he just kind of forgot, falling back into old habits when it was okay to do this, appropriate for him to phone his boyfriend and yell at him over the phone until they could make up or at least make out. He doesn't say anything. He's painfully aware of the silence and the way it makes every other sound—Michael and Sisky on the couch, Patrick shifting in his bed, his own breathing, and the way it's out of sync with Patrick's. Competing rhythms.

"I'm—" he doesn't want to have to say it, but he closes his eyes and says, "I'm sorry. I forgot—" that we're not still like that. "It doesn't matter, you can say whatever you want in interviews. None of my business. I just didn't expect to see you yesterday."

"Yeah, me too. Look, maybe it was just a couple of months for you," Patrick says. "It didn't—it doesn't feel that way to me." He sighs and Bill doesn't see Patrick as he is now. He's focussed on Patrick then, short hair, glasses and T-shirt off. "Does Travis—how did you..." The words come in short, hard sentences that have the rhythm of their fights, even if the tone is wrong, and then Patrick says, "I don't think I can do this now, I'm just gonna—" leaving only the dialtone in Bill's ear and he pulls the phone away for a second, looking at it.

"Nice move," Michael says. Bill gives him the finger without turning around.

 

 

__

* * *

__

 

 

_He has a drink in his hand, but he's not drunk. Not even tipsy not yet, so there's no reason for him to be staring. Or maybe that is a reason, maybe if his mind wasn't so sharp it wouldn't be so focussed on the sight of Patrick sitting on one of the chairs by the tables against the wall. He's smiling, and he's just—his skin and his hands gesturing and Bill misses his hands. He's looking across the room at Gabe and Pete having the kind of conversation that only happens if you're wasted or Pete and Gabe, smiling at them kind of fondly. Patrick's wearing his glasses and Bill hurts, not touching him. Not being allowed to touch him anymore. When they were dating, he could sit on Patrick's lap or put his hand in his pocket or under his T-shirt and he doesn't miss it that much only because he doesn't think about it that much. He was kind of a clingy girlfriend, but he loved it, and now he can't. His fingers press into his glass, which is only plastic so he forces them to let go before it cracks, and he walks over and Bill kisses Patrick. He's not even drunk, not really, and Patrick's there, so he thinks, just go for it already. It's the obvious thing to do when Patrick is sitting there and no-one's with him, so he says, "Hey," and when Patrick looks up, he kisses him. His eyes are closed and it's just Patrick's mouth and it's so familiar, and he puts his hand on Patrick's shoulder for balance, and—_

_And Patrick pushes him away and says, "Okay, so how much have you been drinking."_

_Bill straightens up and says, "Not that much," knowing what it sounds like. It's not like he was expecting anything different, he thinks. Patrick doesn't kiss boys, even if he lets them kiss him sometimes, and he knew that. Rule number eight of musicianship, just because you let someone lick you on stage, doesn't mean anything when you're off. Stupid to try because you can't go back and he knows that, he does. He just forgot for a moment that Patrick, this Patrick, has never been his._


	2. Chapter 2

Bill's not sure what he expects to happen next. Patrick to keep not talking to him. Patrick to say something to Travis. Sisky to switch from looking concerned to worried and back again. His band to sit him down and have an intervention, the moment they stop being put off by his bad mood and fear that somehow, Bill will be scarier, more dangerous as a girl.

Travis comes over and they watch Jurassic Park as a comfort movie and Bill doesn't ask him if Patrick's said anything, which is okay because Travis doesn't say if he has either.

He's not expecting it when Pete barges into their suite, though he probably should have. Pete gives him a quick, dismissive glance that if Bill actually was a groupie would probably make him feel like yesterday's leftover pizza crust, instead of just leaving him kind of pissed off and kind of admiring, and turns to Travis and says, "Your girlfriend is a bitch."

"Hey, I'm right the fuck here," Bill says.

"Which is exactly the problem," Pete says, not to Bill, but to Travis. "Your girlfriend is an evil heartbreaking bitch." Each word said with care and precision, like he was practising it on the way here, which is probably true, Bill thinks.

Travis looks at Pete, mouth open and gaping and then says, "You. You're calling my girlfriend a bitch? You?"

"Still here!" Bill says, swinging himself upright on the couch. "If you've got a problem with me, you can tell me to my face."

"You saying it's not true?" Pete says, and he's still blanking Bill, like Bill is nothing.

Travis folds his arms and looks big, looking down at Pete. "I'm saying you don't get to call anyone's girlfriend a bitch," he says. "Even mine."

Pete opens his mouth to something, shakes it and says, "I'm not talking it about it when she's here."

Bill looks at both of them, then says, "Fine," walking out and slamming the door behind him, hard enough that it bounces back instead of shutting properly, so he can stand outside and listen in.

There's nothing for a moment, then he hears Pete say, low and meaningful, "She broke his heart."

"It was six years ago," Travis says.

"Yeah, and you weren't there. One day he's talking about her, writing music and singing Marlene Dietrich and saying how great she is, how he can't wait for us to meet her, and then nothing. She doesn't turn up, doesn't even fucking text, and he's panicking like she might be lying in a morgue somewhere." Bill winces, wonders if Pete knows he's listening in, if this is designed to make him feel bad. "Which I would've been okay with," Pete adds. "But no, he finds out that she's gone off with some guy, that she lied to him about everything, her school, her family, their relationship."

"First, sixteen, no one makes good decisions then. And second, maybe she had her reasons?"

"What the fuck reason is there for making Patrick think you love him when you're just using him as a summer entertainment?"

It wasn't like that. Bill bites his tongue on the words, because they're true and meaningless. He didn't mean to let it get serious with Patrick, he didn't mean to let him think they had a future. He just kept forgetting, kept pushing it to one side, not wanting to waste time thinking about it when he could use it just being with Patrick. It was just too easy to let himself get distracted, let himself fake like he didn't know there was an expiration date on their relationship.

He misses the end of Pete and Travis, coming back to himself when Pete slams the door open and Bill has to step back so it doesn't hit him in the face. He can see Travis in the other room, one hand rubbing at his face under his glasses and then Pete's in front of him. Bill looks at him, refusing to be embarrassed at being caught listening.

"You're a fucking bitch and if I see you anywhere near my band, the shows or the studio, I'll call security on you and I don't care who you've fooled into thinking you're worth anything," Pete says, loud enough that Bill knows it's at least half for Travis.

"You're a class act, Pete Wentz," Bill says. He's glad he's still got most of his height, glad he can still look down on Pete. "Wow, it's amazing you're not seeing someone right now."

"Yeah, like I'm going to take lessons on class from some flatchested starfucker groupie."

"You son of a—It's not like I meant for—" Bill throws his hands up and steps back, breathes in deeply. "Okay, you know what, we're both class A bitches, and that's something we can work on in therapy, but this is not your business. If Patrick wants to yell at me, fine, but you're not involved here."

"He's my best friend."

"He's my—" And he hesitates, but just for a second, "I'm his ex-girlfriend, not yours. You don't have trashing privileges." Pete looks at him like he's giving serious thought to punching him and that shouldn't be what makes Bill soften, but it's not like he can blame Pete for being pissed at him for hurting Patrick. "I'm sorry if he got hurt, that's pretty much the last thing I ever wanted. Sometimes you don't get a choice about that."

"So you've got a reason for it?" Pete says. His voice is quiet and hard and vicious. "Because I heard a lot of reasons from Patrick. Maybe you got scared, maybe your parents freaked out, maybe you got knocked up and sent to a nunnery or knocked over on the way to his house, got amnesia or died in the ambulance." He takes a step closer the catches himself and moves back. "Maybe you had a boyfriend the whole time, maybe Patrick wasn't good enough, experienced enough, maybe there was something wrong with him, there had to be because he didn't notice anything wrong with you and he should have, right?"

Bill crosses his arms and his fingers dig into his upper arms. He relaxes them deliberately. "If Patrick wants to talk to me, he can, and you can tell him I'm sorry for ending it—" his mouth twists a little, not quite a smile. "For ending it badly. It wasn't exactly my most shining moment." He takes a deep breath. It's probably a mistake to say this, but he has to say it at least once, and talking to Pete's as close as he can get to saying it to Patrick right now. "I'm not sorry for—" and he's not sure what the right word is, so he settles on, "for getting involved. I really liked him, more than I meant to, and maybe I..." And he's running out of words again because what he wants to say is that it's at least half Patrick's fault for being Patrick, but that's not going to be helpful, so he just shrugs and says, "Yeah, anyway. That's it, that's what I have to say."

Pete looks at him and smiles. "You think that makes it better? That you're sorry now, but oh, not really, that you didn't mean to hurt him, you were just criminally fucking careless, and—"

"Pete, get the fuck out until you've calmed down," Travis says, putting his hands on Pete's shoulders. "Seriously, man, don't say—don't do something you'll regret."

"Yeah, really don't think I'm gonna regret—"

"Patrick know you're here?" Travis says. The question makes Pete freeze and Travis nods. "Yeah, didn't think so. I could phone him, recap the last five minutes?"

Pete doesn't say anything but he winces and Bill's not sure if he should be relieved that Pete's doing this on his own, that Patrick didn't send him and probably wouldn't want him here, even if it is for Pete's sake more than Bill's. The silence stretches, grows, and between the three people there, one of them should be able to manage something. He's almost grateful when Butcher slams open the door, cell-phone in his hand and says, "Yo Beckett, Joe says something about Pete coming over here to kill some girl Travie's—oh." He looks at them and Bill's not sure how much he's picking up on, other than the incredibly obvious tension, but it's enough to have him stop mid-entrance and say, "Uh, should I go be somewhere else?"

Pete's laugh is loud and vicious as throwing stones. "Yeah, it's not you that should leave." And then something makes his eyes widen. "Wait, Beckett?"

Butcher's eyes go wide and bill opens his mouth for an explanation, but Butcher beats him to it. "Yeah, she's Bill's cousin."

"You told Patrick your name was Sandersen or something—" Pete says, like he's pretty sure this is another sign of Lily's basic guilt, but he's not sure in what way.

"Mother's side," Butcher says. "But I just call her Beckett because she looks like one. A Beckett."

Pete frowns a little and looks Bill over. Bill knows that he's logging in the similarities. "So I'm guessing Bill's side of the family are the ones that got the heart-genes?" He looks at Travis. "And you, that's fucking incestuous. Settling for the cheap copy? Does she even have anything Bill doesn't."

"Okay, that's kind of harsh," Butcher says, shifting. "Pete, man, you shouldn't talk about someone's cousin like that, it's not..." He trails off, shrugging.

"True. Also true is the fact that this is my room, Wentz." Bill folds his arms and resists the urge to be rational about this, to see things his way. _Flat-chested starfucker groupie._

Pete gives Bill one more look over, before turning and saying to Travis, "If you wanted to date someone else's bad idea, you should have come to me. I could have given you one of my exes." A great exit line for Pete to leave them with, pushing past Butcher in the doorway and slamming out of the room.

"I'm just gonna—" Butcher says, waving vaguely at anywhere that isn't here.

"Yeah, you do that," Bill says.

"Okay, I'll just... You're okay, right?" Butcher's look of sympathy is genuine and Bill really wishes his band was less sensitive, less aware, because he's pretty sure he'd feel harder, tougher about all this if he didn't have the option of breaking down and knowing they'd take care of him. "I didn't mean to—you think it's okay, that I said you were your own cousin?"

"It's fine, really. Honest." Bill gives Butcher a smile that he knows won't convince him, but might tell him Bill wants to fake like he's good. "Not like it can make anything worse. And it gives you guys an excuse to be around me, when they get all..." He gestures at the door Pete went through.

Butcher nods like he gets that and leaves. Bill's pretty sure he has maybe ten minutes before Butcher tells Sisky and then the rest of the band finds out by osmosis. He stays staring at the door for a minute, trying to focus on being impressed at the power of Pete's bitchiness more than anything else, then Travis pulls him in and hugs him and Bill leans his head on his shoulder. "Thanks," he says, muffled against Travis's neck.

"Hey, gotta protect my fake-girlfriend's honour." Travis snorts. "Pete Wentz calling my girl a bitch."

"He hates me, doesn't he?" Bill says. "Jesus, I was sixteen."

"Pete can carry a grudge," Travis says. "He's a bitter, bitter man." This close, Bill can feel Travis speak as much as hear him. "Unless you weren't talking about Pete," Travis adds.

Bill gives a little laugh. "Yeah, I don't know what I mean."

"Sucks to be you, huh?"

Bill inhales, then pushes back, standing up. "It's fine. I'll just hang out with you guys and my guys, and when I flip back, you can bond with Patrick about bad ex-girlfriends. Get a few songs out of it." He hums the opening bars of Queen and I, tapping the beat on Travis's arm.

* * *

The thing is, it's a lot easier to avoid someone if you're in different cities, your friends aren't their friends and you don't hang out at 90% of the same places. Just the thought of it, having to weigh every outing against the chance of running into Patrick makes him feel tired. The last thing he wants is Joe or someone asking Sisky or Mike why they're picking Bill's cousin's side over Patrick's. Or worse, why Bill never mentioned her. It sucks and leaves him feeling clingy, so he makes Sisky sit in front of him on the couch and messes with his hair, before going over the same chorus with Mike a hundred times and trying not to think that the plan was to have Patrick produce this song.

Mike's tracked down the one place in the city that he swears does real Chicago-style pizza, but Bill's not in the mood. It's not that he wants to stay in his room and brood, but going out seems like so much effort, not worth the risk, so he lies on his back and listens to himself sing and thinks about painting his nails until he realises he's thinking about the time Patrick painted his nails, about seeing his own hands across Patrick's skin, and that just leaves him unsettled, bad tempered and turned on and his hands go across his body, tracing over his sides and one hand up to curl against one of his breasts, just feeling himself up, which he's still not bored with. It's tempting to use the memory of Patrick to get off, close his eyes, let his hands work, but he did that a few times after and it wasn't—it was never—it just left him feeling colder, after.

There's a knock at the door, two quiet then two louder. Bill rolls to his feet to answer and if he was thinking, he still wouldn't expect to see Andy there. The urge to close the door right there is pretty strong, but he resists and puts on a politely disinterested expression. "Travis isn't here right now," he says, helpful girlfriend style.

"Yeah, I wanted to talk to you first," Andy says. He has his arms crossed and Andy Hurley being a scary motherfucker is kind of a label-joke, but it's also maybe kind of true.

Bill shrugs and his body feels off, awkward. He's tall for a girl, but still shorter than he normally is and he feels it, like Andy's eyes are a few inches above where they should be, the proportions off. He holds the door open and waves Andy in, but Andy stays where he is, arms folded.

"Pete overreacts sometimes. I just want to make sure that's not going to be an issue."

"I'm not going to be posting clips of it to myspace," Bill says, folding his arms to match Andy's and standing up straight.

"I was more worried about messing with my friends than bad publicity," Andy says.

Bill doesn't let the hit show, but he wishes he was armoured with more than just his T-shirt and jeans. It doesn't matter what Andy thinks, he has to remember that. Andy doesn't know him, doesn't know this is him, Andy never even met him when he was Lily before. "You don't need to worry about that," Bill says, then corrects himself. "Not from Travie anyway. It's not—he's not gonna lose his friendship with you guys over a girl, right? If Pete—if Patrick doesn't feel—"

"Patrick's fine," Andy says. "He wasn't expecting to run into you, but..." He shrugs, casual enough that it has to be fake and says, "It's not like you were Anna or someone he had a meaningful relationship with."

That's—wow. Bill thinks he should be insulted, but he's mostly kind of impressed, because that's a statement designed to put him in his place when Andy has to know, Patrick couldn't have kept from them, that Lily was Patrick's first real girlfriend, the first woman he slept with, which, not to get all cult of virginity about it, but that's a pretty big fucking deal by anyone's standards. And maybe he's not Anna, maybe technically two months isn't the same as two years, but it was still pretty damn significant.

Or maybe this is what Patrick's telling himself now, which is good, right? Bill shrugs at Andy and says, "Teenage romance." Like that's an explanation. And then, because he can't help himself, he's leaning forwards a little, uncrossing his arms and saying, "He's okay, right? I don't want him to be—"

"Hurt?" Andy drops the word in there with perfect timing, one eyebrow raised.

"I never wanted that," Bill says. He stops himself from crossing his arms again. "Things just happen."

"Which you had no control over?" Andy says, then he stops, takes his glasses off and cleans them with the bottom of his T-shirt. He puts them back on and says, "We don't need to talk about this. It doesn't matter anymore, as long as you're not rubbing whatever you have with Travis in Patrick's face, and you don't screw Travis over like you did him."

Bill looks at him for a moment, leaning against the doorway. The edge of it pushes against his forearm and the side of his hip. "You know, you're kind of making me miss Pete right now," he says. "Look, I'm not the one making this a big deal right now. You, you weren't even around back then, and Patrick and me aren't seventeen anymore, okay?"

He shuts the door and leans his head against it on the sign warning them what to do in case of a fire. The exit is at the end of the corridor, there are extinguishers here, here and oh god, is he going to have to deal with a visit from Joe, too? Because he only met Joe a couple of times when he was Patrick's girlfriend, but he thinks Joe liked him then and he really, really doesn't want to deal with Joe not liking him now.

Okay, fuck all of this and he's not going to stay in his room, even if he wants to, he's going to go out and get pizza, get drunk, maybe get laid—with a girl, maybe, because he really did not do that enough the last time he had breasts, and he thinks Travis might cry if Bill doesn't at least make out with another girl at least once—and he's not going to think about Patrick once.

It's a little strange when he heads out. He does feel weirdly off-balance and he hadn't realised just how much of the time he'd spent around Patrick last time. Now that he's letting himself think about it, in his memories he was always leaning on him, Patrick's arm around his waist, slipping his hand in Patrick's pocket. In retrospect, he was possibly a little clingy, but at the time, it was just automatic. Touch Patrick, pet his hair when he was next to Bill, lean on him, sit on his lap if there weren't enough seats. It feels strange to just put his hands in his own back pockets when they're cold, to not have the option of putting them up the sleeves of Patrick's sweatshirt instead, curling them around Patrick's wrist.

He finds the guys and that makes it easier. He can focus on what Mike's saying, and when Butcher, Mike and Sisky move on to a club, he goes with them. Butcher drags him on to the dance floor, he can shut his eyes and feel his body move, occasionally banging into Butcher. It's not the kind of music anyone can look good dancing to, flailing limbs and jumping and it's good, pure and physical and enjoyable, a lot like being on stage. He jumps a little when he feels someone come up behind him, checks over his shoulder and it's just some random guy being hopeful, trying to bump and grind to the wrong music. Bill shakes his head a little, moves away. He catches Butcher's eyes and they dance together for a bit, stupid and careless and fun.

The music changes to something slow and they head back to the others, Bill leaning on Butcher and it takes Bill a moment to register that Mike's talking to someone. There's a moment more for him to remember why it's probably bad that Joe's there and, because life is cruel and has a sense of humour that makes Gabe's look sophisticated, there's Patrick.

Bill goes to step away from the Butcher, but Patrick sees him before he can, so he freezes. Moving would make him look like he feels guilty and he's done nothing wrong, nothing he should feel guilty about, Butcher's hand tightens and Bill can feel him wondering what his cue is.

Patrick's hand goes up like he's going to wave or adjust his hat or something, but doesn't quite make it.

"Hey," Bill says, careful to direct it at no-one in particular. It's barely audible over the sound of the club.

"Hey," Patrick says back, yelling to be heard over the background noise and then wincing at the sound. Bill's acutely aware of everyone watching them with varying degrees of subtlety. "Uh. I didn't realise you'd be here." His smile is fast and awkward and oh, they're going to be grown-up about this, like everyone's going to play nice and be just old friends, like Bill didn't have half of Fall Out Boy warning him off in the past twenty-four hours.

Bill can see Mike try to work out what story they should be telling. He says something too quiet to be heard over the crowd, then repeats it louder. "Bill asked us to look out for her while she was in town."

"And you know I knew Sisky from way back," Bill says.

Patrick nods at him. "Right, I guess you met through Bill? He, uh. He never mentioned you." His face looks kind of grim, but not vicious, just powering through a not-good situation. His shoulders are tense and he's wearing a jacket, shiny and black, despite the heat of the club. Covered and tense and Bill flashes on Patrick in the back of his car, shirt off and jeans open, boneless and sweaty and smiling and all that exposed skin picking up the sulphur orange from the streetlights.

"No reason why he should." Bill tries a smile and his lips feel dry as a bone, but he doesn't want to chapstick or even lick them when Patrick's there. Patrick flinches at something and Bill can feel it, how everything he says will come out wrong. He's angry, he remembers. He's angry with Patrick, or maybe Fall Out Boy in general, and he has to remember that. It's not as good as being over it, but it's close enough, maybe. "I'd leave, but since your boys are making a point of tracking me down in my hotel room..." he shrugs and says. "But since you and Joe are here, I guess I'm safe." Butcher's arm tenses around him, just a little, and he shouldn't be dragging his guys into it. He shouldn't be saying this in public, especially not when he has to shout to be heard.

"What?" Patrick says. "Who... Did Pete—Joe?" Patrick says, not quite angry but like he's definitely considering the possibility.

Joe shrugs and looking relaxed and vaguely stoned. Bill can just about make out what he's saying, and half of that's body language. "Hey, don't look at me. I'm out here with you."

It doesn't look like Patrick buys Joe's act any more than Bill does. He crosses his arms and says, "Fuck, I told you guys not to make a big deal about this." He turns back to face at Bill, looking resentfully apologetic. Bill shrugs and pushes his hair back off the face, using the movement to step away from Butcher.

"We don't want this to be a thing, right? We can just..." and then Bill realises that he's leant down to say this, automatically stepping into Patrick's personal space with one hand on his shoulder so he doesn't have to yell, and he stops, freezes and then straightens up and steps back.

"You're—" Patrick starts to say, then looks around them, frustrated. He swears and Bill can see him form the words, even though he can barely hear them, and yeah, fuck covers his feelings too right now. It's not just Mike and Butcher and Joe, it's the looks from the people around, the _Is that...?_ glances.

Patrick says something to Joe, then turns back to Bill, pointing at a Staff Only door and spreading his hand out. _Five minutes?_

His stomach twists and he's not sure if it's a bad idea or a good one, but... Sure, he can do this, he should be able to do this. It's not going to be a thing. He nods, and there's an awkward moment when he thinks Patrick's going to take his hand and pull him along, when he thinks Patrick thinks that and both of them move to do it, and then realise and try to cover it up. He makes an it's-cool gesture to Butcher and Mike and follows Patrick through the door. There's a hallway, lit up with a red light bulb and no shade.

It's not silent and he can still hear the music from the club, but the difference in volume is disorientating. It's like everything is muffled, except for them and all their movements are too loud. Bill's hands are sweaty and he wipes them on his jeans, trying to be discreet, but Patrick's eyes follow the movement and then look away. Bill can't tell if Patrick's flushed or if it's just the light, and maybe guys might talk about how hard is it to tell if a girl likes you, how men are so more obvious, but from the inside, it's pretty fucking clear, and Patrick, Patrick knows him.

He wishes he wasn't wearing one of his usual t-shirts, wonders if Patrick can tell it's a guy's, if he thinks it belonged to some ex-boyfriend or something. Or god, if he recognises it as one of Bill's and wonders what Lily's doing wearing it. Maybe he should buy some new clothes or get his mom to send him the box of clothes from before. He has one of Patrick's oversized sweatshirts with the logo for some obscure-even-then Chicago band, in a drawer back home. And underneath the T-shirt he borrowed but didn't wear much because it was a horrific shade of orange, so he just slept in it. These are exactly the wrong kind of thoughts to be thinking right now, and Bill's trying to be good, but his nerves are on edge and he thinks if he doesn't pick a fight with Patrick, he's going to try to fuck him and that, that would be really bad.

He crosses his arms over his tits and says, "You know, Pete acts like I'm his evil ex, not yours."

"He's my best friend." Which is a reason, sure, but not an excuse, or not one Bill's willing to accept right now.

"How the hell did he even know I was there? You wanted to yell at me, you could have done that in person, not through your friends or MTV." Angry, he's angry, not hurt at that.

"I didn't—Joe was there when you phoned this morning," Patrick says. "I didn't know what they were going to do."

Bill laughs without meaning to, short and hard. "Jesus, Patrick, they're your friends. What did you think they'd do? If it was—" He stops, because there's no way to end that will make look coherent and he's kind of smiling and sees Patrick's mouth echo it and it's too easy to fall back into that, feedback loop of curved mouths and Bill doesn't actually move, but it still feels like his whole body leans in.

Maybe Patrick sense it too because he stiffens and his mouth goes tense. "Fine, I'll—you know, whatever, I'll ask Pete to tone it down."

His voice is curt and his body is all closed off, but Bill sees the way Patrick's eyes drop to his mouth and he knows Patrick wants to kiss him.

"Andy too, you'll call off the—" Not dogs, dogs is giving them too much credit "the puppies."

Patrick lets out a bark of laughter then stops himself, drawing back in and he looks at Bill, lost for a second, same wild-eyed look he used to get before punching someone back in the old days, and then he takes a deep breath and before he can say anything, Bill says, "So we're good, right?" And he reaches out and touches Patrick's shoulder and—oh, he shouldn't have done that, but now he doesn't know how to take his hand back. His hand is just—it's there and it's a good thing, such a good thing he's wearing layers, because Bill can just feel the slick, plastic feel of the jacket and not the warmth of Patrick's skin. He snatches it back and then holds it against himself like it's burnt.

Patrick's quiet for a moment, long enough to make Bill anxious, before Patrick looks away, somewhere two foot to the side of Bill's head, and speaks. "After you left, I went back over everything, all the time we'd spent together, looking for something I'd missed. Some kind of clue." He laughs, just for a second. "The guys were way more patient than I deserved mostly. They had to deal with a lot of the—" he sketches an explosion in the air with one hand. "The, you know, fall out. Not my finest hour." He steps forward and takes Bill's hand lightly by the wrist, turning it palm up like he's checking for cuts. "I don't want to be that guy again, Lily." His voice is soft, bitter and Bill can hear the slight differences he's picked up over the years. "I didn't like it much the first time."

"Jesus, Patrick, you've got to—" Let go, Bill means to say, because I can't take this, but Patrick looks up and that's it, game over, because Bill's grabbing Patrick's jacket and pulling him towards him or Patrick's pushing him back against the wall, and Patrick's kissing him, his hands on Bill's waist and Bill's knocked Patrick's hat off, hands in his hair, and that's different, longer, easier to grip even though Patrick doesn't look like he's planning on moving away. Bill bites at his mouth like he's wanted to do for years and Patrick's groan is satisfying in the way that makes him greedy. He rolls up against Patrick, wanting more, friction and skin and Jesus, it's good, it's—he wants, all of him, breathing hard and he doesn't have to think, just react.

"Lily," Patrick says against his mouth and yes, saying his name like that, that tone of voice and his hands on Bill's skin, it's perfect and it's right what he wanted and it's—"Lil, you—"

Wrong.

He thinks it, but he's not sure if he's the one that freezes first or if it's Patrick, just that all of a sudden they're not touching, several feet of space between them and Patrick's mouth looks wet and his own teeth bite one it. Bill wraps his hands around himself to stop them reaching out. His T-shirt's shoved up, not quite showing his tits and his hands touch his own skin.

"Fuck," Patrick says, and Bill has to fight back the part of him that wants to go, Yes, please. He pulls his T-shirt down and tucks it in, mindlessly. He's can't look at Patrick directly. It's—He could do it, he could have him again. It's a bad thought, selfish and guaranteed to cause maximum damage. Patrick didn't want to be that guy and Bill doesn't want to be that girl, but he could—he could just push Patrick, just enough, say the right things or enough of them for Patrick to pretend to himself that he believes them.

Or he could tell him the truth and—

And what? Be Patrick's evil-ex full time, so every time they met, Patrick would look at Bill and see Lily? See Bill as the wrong version, and either be pissed at him full time or—

It's like a cold shower, except that it actually works. He can't afford to do this again.

"That wasn't meant to happen," Bill says. 'You—you mess up my plans."

Patrick tucks his hands in his pockets and looks up at Bill, half-smiling like he doesn't mean to. "I—I really don't know how to take that."

Bill leans back against the wall, head tilted forward. He can see the toes of his shoes and Patrick's feet and he doesn't look up when he speaks. "You might not believe me, but I really missed you when I left."

"Yeah, that doesn't, it doesn't actually help, Lily. You had my number and email and address, you could have..." Patrick trails off and Bill can see his feet shuffle slightly. "I guess it doesn't matter anymore."

Such a fucking lie.

"I need to get back to the hotel," Bill says. His voice sounds a little rough and he rubs his throat and hopes that he's just coming down with something. He pushes away from the wall and tries to look calm, stable, like he's not still painfully aware of how easy it could all be for the next, say, forty-five minutes until they had to deal with it all again.

"You're staying with Travis?" Patrick says, not looking at him.

Bill gives a vague shrug. "I'll try not to see you around."

* * *

_Generally, if pushed, Bill would say that he goes for people who know what they're doing. People who know what they want -fuck, he likes that- but still. Patrick is just shiny and new and so appreciative of everything Bill does, like he never expected it to happen to him. He looks at Bill like he's some kind of Mata Hari-Ishtar-centrefold genius, like he's not only succeeding at being a girl, but excelling, best fucking girl ever. It makes Bill feel awesome, actually. As does what Patrick's doing right this moment with his mouth and the fact that Bill's the only girl he's ever gone down on means that Patrick has amazing natural talent or Bill is an excellent teacher because, oh, yes, there, again._

_"I am never getting tired of this," Bill says, breathing heavily and head falling back against the pillow._

_Patrick raises his head and smiles. It's smug, but it's deserved, so Bill pulls him up and kisses him. He can taste himself on Patrick and he thinks, just for a second, of how it'd be if he'd done this before, if they did it after, more bitter, but he stops that thought as soon as he thinks it. It's pointless, and it'll kill the mood, and anyway, he has Patrick here now._

_"That's good to know," Patrick says. He looks flushed and sweaty and happy, proud of himself and Bill wraps his legs around him. Bill likes that, even when they're not having sex._

_"Seriously, I could do this forever. Like, forever," Bill says into Patrick's shoulder, rubbing the side of his face against Patrick's and then giving him a little nip to match the hickey already there. He likes that, likes the way Patrick hesitates between wanting to cover them up and wanting to show them off, and the way they can just be out at the cinema or something and Bill can just lean over and add to them._

_"Also, also good to know," Patrick says, quiet and a little stuttery and oddly intense. Bill raises his head to ask why, but Patrick kisses him instead and it's so good, still, even though Bill came like, thirty seconds ago, that he almost doesn't pick up on what Patrick said, what he said._

_Oh! Oh, that's—Bill didn't mean that like it came out, he didn't. He should say something, but Patrick's hand is flat across his stomach, sliding to his hip and later, Bill can tell him later. After._

* * *

Bill's mom sends over a box of his clothes from the last time. The T-shirts still fit. The jeans were a little looser then, but they're okay now, and oh, that pair of black trousers which he loved are—yeah, definitely unwearable now, damn it.

It's funny, in the ha-ha-very-funny, ironic sense, that he already has a few T-shirts from back then with him. There's a Third-Eye Blind T-shirt and one with "Rage against the Machine, Man Versus Android" flaking off it and a stupid green one he stole from Patrick one night. The thing is, he's worn them all a couple of times since then, as a boy. Patrick's probably even seen him in them and just—they were in the same area, went to the same stores. He just can't wear them now because it'd mean he was wearing Patrick's old T-shirt and Patrick would know.

Panic arrive for studio work, a charity album thing FBR are doing, and that's better at first. Between that and whatever Patrick said to them, it keeps Pete off Bill's back, busy doing promo work and getting himself into another video. He still has to avoid being there when Joe or Andy comes over, but that's okay, he can work with that.

It starts sucking about three days in, because he forgot that Panic are their friends, too. It's normal for Ryan Ross to hang around with Mike, for Brendon and Butcher to mainline episodes of Firefly. It gets pretty clear pretty quickly that they've been coached by Pete and Andy on Lily, why she ranks somewhere between Lucreiza Borga and Emma Frost. They're not rude, are polite even, when Bill shows up with Travis or Sisky and Mike. It takes Bill a while to figure out that it's not just the normal, slightly distant manners to the friend's girlfriend you're not really sure of, the one you're polite to only because you know being honest about her will just make them cling on tighter.

It takes almost a week of constant interruptions, Ryan turning up at Travis's hotel room with some excuse to drag him out, Spencer needing to speak to Butcher just when Bill and Butcher were planning on hitting the local mall, Sisky being asked to show Brendon around town nightly, for Bill to realise that they're practically staging an intervention. Cutting Bill out and keeping Travis out late and Jon keeps introducing Travis to this girl that he knows, increasingly less subtle suggestions that Travis can do better.

"It's a campaign," Bill says. "Those fucking boys are trying to break us up." He's amazed and kind of impressed and thinking he should be a little bit more annoyed, but he keeps wondering if he'd win in a catfight with Spencer Smith.

"I'm holding out for Lily Allen's phone number," Travis says, pulling Bill against him on the couch. Bill curls next to him, Travis's hand on his waist. "Don't dump me before they come through with that."

"You think it'll take long?"

"Nah, they're getting pretty desperate." Travis leans his head against Bill's. "You owe me, though. There was this one girl..." He groans dramatically. "Can we have an open fake-relationship?"

"We could be fake just friends?" Bill says. He looks across the room at the TV, which would probably work better if it was on. "I know you've been working with Patrick in the studio a lot. Might be easier if you just..."

"Dumped you? I'm saving that for our three month anniversary."

"Classy."

"Yeah, I try." Travis pulls him in and Bill leans his head on his shoulder. It's warm and Travis smells good, a mix of weed and shower -gel and he curls in and thinks about it, thinks about maybe just reaching over and just being a good fake girlfriend, and the idea is appealing enough that he shifts slightly, legs crossed, and then Travis says, "So you and Patrick any less complicated? Because you both seem pretty hung up on each other and—"

Bill straightens up and leans away and says, "you know how to kill the mood."

"There was a mood?" Travis turns to face him, eyebrows up above the rims of his glasses. Bill can't tell if it's faked. "An in-the-mood-mood? Fuck, man, I take it back, I—"

Bill rolls his eyes and swings his legs up onto the couch and moving back so his back is pressed against the armrest. "Too late," he says. He kicks at Travis's thigh. "Bringing up the ex? How do you ever get laid?"

Travis picks Bills legs up and stretches them across his lap, petting at them. "Yeah, most of my girlfriends are a lot more fucked in the head than you, so..." He grins at Bill, rolling his head on the back of the couch, looking really fucking adorable and Bill almost wants to blow him just for that.

Instead, he scrunches down on the couch, getting more comfortable, and lets Travis take the remote. They watch two episodes of Venture Brothers before Travis says, "You thought about what you're gonna do after? When you lose the..." He gestures at Bill's body. "And get your dick back?"

"Sure," Bill says. "I'm an old hand at this."

Travis raises an eyebrow, pretty much calling Bill on lying. Like a rug, it says, which is pretty damn mouthy for a n eyebrow. Bill kicks out with his heel, digging it in to Travis's leg and just missing his crotch. "Shut up," he says. "Watch Venture Brothers."

"Yeah, I'm gonna love the aftermath," Travis says, but he shuts up and focuses on the screen.

 

 

Travis heads out, maybe to try and work on getting Lily Allen's number, maybe just to spend time with people with simpler love lives, or at least simpler biology. Bill opts for an early night, which is why he gets woken up to the sound of someone banging at the door. He grabs the bathrobe and staggers out of the room, opens the door, scrubbing at his face and says, "I hate you," stepping back to let Travis in.

There's no response. Bill takes his hand away from his face and stares out blearily. Shit. He needs to look before he opens the doors.

"I'm. I'm pretty sure that's my line," Patrick says. His mouth is twisting into something that's more a smile than anything else.

"Sorry, I thought you were..." Bill makes a gesture above his head, shorthand for Travis. "I wasn't expecting to see you again."

"Yeah, I'm—" Patrick shrugs. "Not."

"Yeah, I noticed.' Bill shakes his head, trying to wake up enough to deal with this. "It's—what time is it?"

"Late. Or, you know, early. I need to talk to you," Patrick does that thing, lifting his hat up just enough to push his hair back, then putting it down. Bill blinks, because it's familiar, that movement, but it feels like it isn't. Patrick didn't do it when they dated. "It's late, I know."

"Or early," Bill says. "I thought, didn't we decide to just not..." he gestures at the two of them. "You know?"

Patrick nods and then shrugs. "We are. I mean, I will, I want—I don't want to be here, I'm gonna go, just I need to—fuck. I know we were kids, I know—but I need a reason, I need you to, just some kind of—"

"Patrick, I'm sorry I—" And he can't do this, he really can't, not when his whole body is still leaning towards Patrick. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, then opens his eyes. "I'm so sick of apologising to you," Bill says.

"I don't want an apology," Patrick says. "I just want an explanation, I want to know—" he gets louder as he's speaking, that voice that gets more impressive with every year.

"I was seventeen and stuff was happening in my life—"

"Stuff you never mentioned? Stuff you could have told me about when I thought I was your boyfriend—"

"That was never meant to happen." Bill didn't mean to say that, but the words are there, out. He pushes his hair back out of his eyes -it's floppier when he's a girl, which is still fucking weird- and he sees Patrick's eyes drop to the front of his robe. He tightens it, tucking it more securely and he feels on edge, that tension that feels almost like gearing up for a fight, but not exactly. Not fear, just something saying that a bathrobe isn't exactly dressed and there's Patrick, right there, and jesus fuck, if he was wearing a nun's habit, he'd probably still feel this way.

"You. Where's Travis?" Patrick says, like he's just putting together the fact that it wasn't Travis at the door, that Travis isn't there, that it's just them.

Bill looks at him blankly and fuck, Patrick knows he hates being woken up in the middle of the night, that he has trouble thinking straight between the hours of midnight and nine am. Travis, why would Travis be—oh, yeah. "We don't spend every night together," he says. "I like to sleep at night sometimes and Travie..." he tails off. Travis has this weird habit of starting conversations in his sleep and it always throws Bill off. "You know how he is."

Patrick nods and Bill thinks, he does know. He knows Travis, he knows Bill's friends and when he turns back, Bill's still going to have to see him every day, on tour and in the studio and on TV. "And you can stop acting like I fucked up your life," Bill says. He's grabbing at the neckline of his robe and he forces his fingers to let go. "You turned out pretty good, you're not, you're not Pete or something. You got over me."

"Because I'm not writing songs about you?"

"Because you're not—" Bill's starting to yell and he makes himself calm down. "It's not like you never dated again. You're well-adjusted and successful and you have, you know, healthy relationships with women. You got over me."

"Yeah, I'm not doing so well with that," Patrick says. "I was, don't get me wrong. I pretty much never thought about you anymore, and then you're here and you're dating one of my best friends and you're all I can think about, Lily."

"Patrick," Bill says and he doesn't mean to. It just slips out, two syllables and too much history and he knows, even before Patrick moves in, what's going to happen. He steps forward to meet him. It's too easy, all of it, and—

And yeah, this is probably a bad idea, but maybe it'll get lost in all the others.

Patrick kisses like—like Patrick kisses, his hands on Bill's waist. There's nothing tentative about it, just the feel of his mouth on Bill's, his teeth biting against Bill's lip. Bill pushes against Patrick's hands and enjoying the feeling of resistance and pushing past it, pressing against Patrick. Patrick's reading his mind or something, because he has his thigh between Bill's legs and Bill thinks, _he's better at this than he was_ and then wishes he hadn't.

He feels the edge of Patrick's glasses knock into his cheek and he pulls back enough to pull them off, hesitating and meeting Patrick's eyes. It's just a moment, but it's deliberate and takes away at least half of the excuses (caught up in the moment, sleep-drunk, couldn't help it) Bill's probably going to be reaching for tomorrow.

And that moment passes and everything's just a blur of action, feeling. Patrick's hands on the front of his bathrobe, the friction of Bill's skin against Patrick's jeans, Bill scrambling, trying to get his legs around Patrick, trying to get closer and the moment of panic, fuck, fuck, he doesn't have anything with him, any protection, so he's scrambling in Patrick's pockets, and oh, this might be easier if he didn't have his legs wrapped around Patrick. He drops them, and then gets side-tracked because Patrick's cock is right there, and yeah, maybe they can't do everything right this minute, but that didn't stop them before, right?

He closes his eyes because he can't quite take this, can't deal with the overlapping memories and then Patrick's hands are in his hair and when Bill opens his eyes, Patrick looks like Bill is killing him, breaking his heart all over again. He's biting his lip and Bill wants this, the bedroom, he has—

* * *

_It's not that he's forgotten, exactly, but it's easier to put it in a box, tie it up and push it at the back of the drawer. No reason to think of Patrick, his Patrick, when he's watching Patrick, his friend, playing with his band. He doesn't even get jealous when Pete hangs all over Patrick, because it's not like Patrick's his to be jealous of. He sees Patrick at parties, at shows, and he just thinks, Patrick, plays drums and a bunch of other stuff, Patrick that I can bitch about the sound system at the Royal with and trying to do math homework backstage at the Knights, Patrick who it's okay to push into the pool, but not to pull under unless you want your teeth kicked in. Compartmentalisation is the key to success, Bill knows. He read it in a newspaper somewhere._

_He waves at Patrick when he's coming off stage and Patrick nods back and joins him._

_Patrick's glasses are sliding down and Bill pushes them back up his nose and Patrick blinks at him, head drawn back kind of. Bill drops his hands to his side and he sounds perfect, breezy, when he says, "They were falling down."_

_"Thank you?" Patrick says, looking at Bill like he's judging drunk to crazy to essential William Beckettness._

_"Don't mention it," Bill says. Casual, like there's nothing special about Patrick, like Bill's just the kind of guy to go around pushing people's glasses back in to place. "Hey, you seen Mike?"_

_"I think he was trying to scare your new drummer," Patrick says._

_"Yeah? Was it working?"_

_Patrick shrugs and they look over at Mike and Mrotek, Andy-not-that-Andy. The Butcher. It looks like he's trying to—is that silly string? "It's kind of hard to tell," Patrick says._

_"Want to help me rescue him?"_

_"Wow, tempting as that isn't, I have plans with my girlfriend," Patrick says, tucking his hair back and adjusting his hat._

_"Your girlfriend?" Bill says, then realises that maybe he shouldn't sound so shocked. "I didn't know you were seeing someone."_

_Patrick's smile is bright and Bill's stomach tenses. "Yeah," Patrick says. He's sweaty from being on stage, but kind of glowy and it takes Bill a moment to get why that expression looks strange and familiar. He has seen it on Patrick before, but not for a while. "It's, uh. It's new, but she's really..." He shrugs and smiles again like he can't help it. "And she didn't even flinch when she met the guys."_

_"They're not that scary," Bill says, trying not to fill in the blanks and the spaces between Patrick's words._

_Patrick shakes his head and says, "You haven't seen them when I like a girl. They can be a little..." he shrugs._

_"Overprotective," Bill offers and he thinks about it, being Pete maybe, so Patrick is his best friend and yeah, of course he'd be a little bit psychotically overprotective. Happy for him, but only after careful vetting, making sure she's good enough, fearful in case she breaks his heart._

_"I was going for more insane, but sure." Patrick shrugs, agreeable and in a good mood. Happy, probably, in that early stage of I-think-this-is-it), and Bill leans across his him for stability, hugging him a little. Patrick is his friend, and he has a girlfriend that makes him smile and Bill is Patrick's friend and it makes him happy, makes him smile back when Patrick smiles._

_He leans his head down and rests the side of his face against the top of Patrick's hat and says, "It's how they say they love you."_

_"Hmm," Patrick says, but his arm comes round to help steady Bill, and he's warm, solid and it's good. This is good. It's not_ that _, but it's this and Bill's okay, he's okay with it. He rubs the side of face against Patrick's hat again, enjoying the feel. It's not everything he wants in this moment, but it's probably still enough._

* * *

Bill wakes up with pins and needles down his arms and his first thought is that he's got it caught under someone, and that leads to last night crashing back on him with this combination of oh, fuck and a lingering warm glow from his body of mmm, yes and maybe again? His breath hitches and he forces himself to even it out because he should not wake Patrick, Patrick who's always worst when he rises out of consciousness, Bill needs to just ease his arm out from under Patrick and escape from the room and—and something, Something will occur to him, he's sure, when he's not lying right next to Patrick and oh, shit, he fucked Patrick and Travis isn't even going to have the grace to be smug about being right, he's just going to be sympathetic and knowing as fucking Yoda and...

And Patrick's waking up. He frowns, his eyebrows drawing together, his eyes squeezing shut before they open. There's a second, just a second where his expression is almost affectionate before Patrick's eyes widen a bit and he says, "Lily?"

Bill nods. "Yeah."

"Oh, fuck," Patrick says.

Bill snorts. "Yeah, just what I was thinking." He starts to roll away from Patrick and feels the pins and needles spread from his arm and that's when he realises that he's not touching Patrick at all. His arm isn't trapped under anything, neither are his legs, and it's been seven years since this happened last, but he can remember the signs and oh, fuck fuck motherfucking not now. "I've got to—" he says, pushing himself up and away, not caring about modesty. "You should leave, you've got to—" And he stops talking, curling in on himself as the pins and needles grow more intense, rising into a whole body cramp.

"Lil?" Patrick says. Bill can hear the concern in his voice and any other time but now and he'd be happy to hear it.

"Seriously, Patrick, get the fuck—Oh, Christ." He curls in on himself, keeping his back towards Patrick.

"I can't leave you like—Are you, I need to call—" Patrick says and Bill hears him shift behind him and then feels his hand on his shoulder. Bill pulls away and runs to the bathroom before Patrick can say anything, locking the door behind him.

"Lil! What's wrong, are you—" Patrick says, rattling the doorknob.

Bill closes his eyes, just for a second, and looks at his reflection. His eyes are wide and dilated, his mouth red and his skull, cheekbones, chin, are still female, but he can feel the beginnings of the shift. "I'm fine," he calls out. "Just get out, get—" Oh, this is going to make it worse, but, "Travis is coming back soon, I'm—" and then another wave and he slides down next to the toilet and dry heaves into it. It's worse coming back, always is.

Patrick bangs on the door and Bill yells, "Get out!" trying to keep his voice high, hoping any roughness is just as normal as any morning after.

 

 

He waits and hears the door to the hotel room open and then slam shut a few seconds later, but he doesn't get up. He keeps his breathing steady, just like his mom told him before he went through this the first time, and let it happen. It takes fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, and when it's done he feels weak at the knees and starving hungry. He gets up, pulling himself upright on the sink. Bill runs the water, splashes it on his face and looks down. Yeah, there's his cock again and he missed it, but right now, all he can think is that the timing fucking sucks. A day earlier so it didn't happen, a day later so he could have run damage control... He leans forward at his reflection. He looks pale, but he's still got the fucking hickeys, obvious on his neck, his chest.

Okay, so high necklines for a while -maybe he can borrow one of Ryan Ross's scarves since Ryan probably won't try to poison it. And get Travis to go along with some suitably awful break-up so he gets sympathy for a bad ex instead of Pete getting their buddy tattoos removed, and he's—He catches himself nodding, making the list of things to do because it's so much easier to keep going and not think about making exactly the same mistakes at twenty-three that he made at sixteen, because apparently, his body comes conditioned with the idea that sex with Patrick Martin Stumph is a good thing, even when his head, his heart and every single member of The Academy Is... and Gym Class Heroes says otherwise.

And fuck, he's going to have to listen to all of Fall Out Boy talk about what an evil bitch he is, watch Patrick be angry and miserable and—

And just for a second, he can picture himself with his arm around Patrick's shoulders, telling him it's gonna be okay. Maybe Patrick's a little drunk, just enough to lean against Bill, so Bill can...

Can turn out to that bad ex-girlfriend and that creepy current friend, maybe. Bill catches his reflection rolling his eyes and says, "Yeah, I know," to himself, then turns to leave. He hesitates at the door—he heard Patrick leave, but still—and calls out, "Hey, Patrick?" in as close to his girl-voice as he can.

Nothing and Bill can't hear breathing, so he unlocks the bathroom door and steps out.

The thing is, the thing he should have remembered in retrospect is that Patrick breathes quietly. The other thing he should have remembered is that Patrick is—sneaky is the wrong word, is too light to use when Bill can feel his heart drop through the floor and into the hotel's foundations.

"Bill?" Patrick says.

There's a frown as Patrick tries to make reality make sense. He glances over Bill's shoulder and then at Bill, at his face. "Where'd you—where's Lily? Is she..."

"Patrick," Bill says. His mouth his dry and he licks his lips and gets a sense of déjà vu so strong it hurts, because oh, he probably shouldn't have done that. Patrick's eyes lock onto the movement and he can see them widen like something in a cartoon He looks at Bill, looks him over and Bill can almost see two realities colliding and

"You. You look." Patrick closes his and breathes in, deep and shuddering, before opening them again. "Lily?" And his voice is wrong, weak in a way Patrick's so rarely is these days.

This is the moment where Bill should say something. Laugh, maybe, or say something that'll let Patrick shake his head and think "Wow, what the fuck was I thinking?" but he just can't quite do it.

"No, this is—" Patrick is up, off the bed and moving towards him before Bill can blink, and then one hands on Bill's neck, just above the bite-mark, and Patrick has to reach up, further than he normally does, because Patrick's never—not when Bill was Bill, and the touch feels wrong, the angle just off, so Bill raises his hand to pull it away and then doesn't. His fingers curl around Patrick's. He laughs, just a little, nervously, and says, "So this is kind of a long story."


	3. When you were sweet

It's not a long story, not really, and Bill should have known that by the fact that he'd managed to tell every member of his band while drunk, high or both. It takes three sentences to actually explain it, and Bill undigs his nails from his palms and thinks this is going to be okay, this going to actually, maybe be okay. He's sitting next to Patrick on the bed and maybe Patrick's staring at the floor, but Bill's doing the same, so it's not a bad sign, right?

He catches sight of Patrick's hands in the corner of his eye, locked together and the fingertips pressing into the back of his hands hard enough that Bill can see the tips go pale. And then Patrick says, "So who else knows?"

Bill shrugs and says, "Sisky, his brother. My band, it's not the kind of thing you can keep from them."

"Travis?"

"Yeah, I—I get a little chatty when I'm drunk, you know?" Bill laughs, kind of hoping for Patrick to smile, share the joke.

"But not me," Patrick says. He's still looking at the floor and Bill can see the tendons in his hands, the muscles in his forearms tensing. "Were you ever going to tell me? Or, wait, I guess I know the answer to that. Okay, different question, aside from Sisky, how many people know about..." He pulls his hands apart and Bill's relieved, some part of him worried about Patrick's fingers if he kept them clenched like that. "That you were my girlfriend."

"It's not—I mean, it's not like anyone knows details," Bill says, a little too quickly. "Sisky knew already, and I had to tell them something, but it's not."

"And I'm not." He says it flat, like it's not in question.

"You are!" Bill says, reaching over to curl his fingers around Patrick's wrist. "You're—fuck, you are my friend, just not about..." He tries to find an end to that sentence just ends up with, "This. That stuff, you know, then."

Patrick nods and Bill realises his hand is on Patrick's wrist. It should look stranger, he thinks, but then no, he's probably touched Patrick more as a guy, an arm across his shoulder, a hand on his arm. Casual and light and really, really fucking inappropriate right now. He pulls his hand back and puts it in the bed between them and feels awkward, like he hasn't since he had his first growth spurt.

"Why me?"

He almost doesn't hear it, Patrick's speaking so quietly. "What?"

"Why me? Why..." Patrick shrugs and he looks awkward too, like they've both regressed to sixteen.

"Oh, fuck," Bill says. He leans back on his hands, looking at the ceiling. "I—what would you do if you turned into a girl, you know?"

"No, I get that," Patrick says. "But you're not answering my question."

The ceiling isn't really yellow, Bill notices for the first time. It's cream, with some kind of speckled effect. Butcher would know the name for that, probably. And Patrick's still there, still waiting for an answer. "I liked you," he says, focussing on the slightly uneven colour of the ceiling. "I thought you were hot, I wanted someone I... I don't know, I just wanted you. I never meant for it to go as far as it did. The dating and—it was just meant to be, you know. Fun. Simple." And, because he never got a chance to say it, not the way he wanted, Bill says, "You're kind of a heartbreaker." It comes out more bitter than he meant it to.

Patrick's shoulders are moving and Bill raises his head to look at him. "Patrick?"

Not crying, laughing. Kind of. "I'm a heartbreaker! You didn't once think of saying hey, no point trying to get me to meet your friends, hey, maybe we shouldn't plan past August? No, you just let me think it was something real when it was just you going through your experimental phase and using me as the guinea-pig!"

Bill is up and on his feet, hands clenched and it'd be so much fairer to hit Patrick now, when Patrick could hit back. "You think I wanted to end it? I couldn't exactly tell you. Either you wouldn't believe or you—yeah, the 'Hey, I'm actually a guy!' thing doesn't always go down so well."

"So you didn't tell me because you thought I'd freak, that I'd think you were a freak? Wow, it's great to know how much you think of me, Bill." Patrick glares up at him through his glasses and his T-shirt is on back to front.

"Yeah, I can see how wrong I was when you're _reacting so well_." Bill says. "Fuck you, I didn't want to risk losing a friendship—"

"We weren't friends!" Patrick says. "You were just someone I knew from around, you wouldn't—"

"I would have!" Bill says. "I wanted to have you as a friend, even if you didn't know who I was! I didn't want you hating me or treating me like a freak every time we met."

"All this time, you've had this—you knew me, you knew my stuff, personal stuff I'd told you because I was sixteen and stupid and." Patrick stops yelling, then says, "In love. You let me tell everyone, my friends, my family—"

"I'm not responsible for—" Bill starts to say.

"You didn't stop me! You knew how I felt, Bill. I didn't exactly keep it secret."

Patrick's looking at him and it's not a good feeling, knowing that Bill was right all along, because it's exactly how he pictured it, if Patrick found out.

"No," Bill says. "You didn't." The heavy lead weight in his stomach is probably justified, pay back for every time he let Patrick say, "I really like you," or put his arm around his waist, every time he stayed close when he should have left early.

"I've got to go," Patrick says. He stands up and looks around, not really seeing anything. Bill sits back down on the bed and tries not to breathe in too deeply. He catches sight of Patrick's hat on the bedside table and wonders if he should try and give it back.

A few seconds later he hears someone scramble at the handle and the door opens before he can get up to help.

"Hey, Bill! You're Bill!" Travis says, high and happy.

"Yeah," Bill says.

"S'cool. I missed your dick. Not a lot, but some." Travis nods, and then frowns. "So was that Patrick I just saw in the hallway?"

Bill nods and grimaces. "Yep."

"Well, fuck," Travis says, loudly and sincerely.

Bill winces and starts to laugh.

* * *

_Bill's not sure what he's expecting, the first time he picks up a girl after turning back into a guy. For it to be easier, maybe, like he'll be in on some secret code, like he'll know exactly what to say because he's been one of them._

_It isn't. It's easy the way it always is, because he looks good, because he can pull off acting cool, or the more socially acceptable kind of dork. Because he can legitimately say that he's in a band and he plays guitar and sings._

_It's comfortable, falling back into this and he's maybe a little relieved at that. He doesn't have to think about it, he just has to do it. A little, fun conversation about the Simpsons and South Park, the kind of thing that's mostly an excuse to make sure that they're on the same wavelength._

_Abi's all warm, comfortable curves, weird, dark purple lipstick, and he really, really likes her tight jeans and the way he can see her bright blue bra-straps when the straps on her tank top start sliding off her shoulders. "Not just the Simpsons," she says. "Futurama too."_

_"That's kind of cheating," he says. "There's two more seasons if you use Futurama too. Someone bumps into her and he catches her and lets his hand go to her hip and she stays there, right in his space. It's good, but it's also oddly strange._

_It's just because he's used to it being Patrick, to being taller, but not by as much, to paler skin and fewer curves and that's all it is, habit._

_They find a nice corner and he has to bend way down to kiss her, but it's worth it. Warm skin, the taste of lipstick and punch on her mouth, the slightly scratchy feel of her lace bra when his hands go under her soft cotton tank top. She pushes back against him and his jeans get uncomfortably tight and she says, "So I hear this place has bedrooms."_

_Abi is really, honestly, fucking hot, even more so when she's pulling her tank-top off and he can see her really, truly, amazing breasts, her soft, pouty belly and he has a little pang of jealousy because he definitely wasn't built that way as a girl, and then his mind points out that he doesn't need to be thinking right now, because there she is, half-naked and there. He moves forward and she falls back so he's on all fours over her._

_He missed this, he thinks. Missed women and that edge of someone-new excitement, and finding out that touching her there makes her moan like that._

_It makes him feel nicely smug, when he finds the zip on her jeans and she presses her hand against his, because he knows what do to. Her grin and gasps and he thinks about going down on her because he knows he's better at that now and—_

_—it's just a moment, a flash of Patrick going down on him, a combination of his am-I-doing-this right nervousness the first time and growing confidence all the times after and—_

_Bill pushes it back and undoes her jeans and oh, all that time with Patrick (two months, he has to remember that, it just feels like longer) and now here he is again, and it's familiar and different when he touches her, tastes her. His dick is hard in his jeans and he's absorbed in this, and it hits him right before she comes that right that second, he's not thinking about Patrick and then he realises he is._

_He pulls away, a little shaken, and moves up the bed to lie down next to her._

_"Good boy," she says, sounding a little dazed. She kisses him and she must be able to taste herself there. "That was—"_

_"My pleasure," he says. "Uh, so can you—"_

_"I suppose it's fair," she says, and slides down the bed. "You got a—"_

_"Pocket."_

_He closes his eyes when she goes down on him and oh, fuck, it really has been too long. She's not fancy, but she knows what to do and she doesn't seem to mind. He's grateful that he drank enough not to totally embarrass himself now and he risks picturing it, her mouth and that purple lipstick, wrapped around his dick._

_He gets it then, the sort of image that's strong enough that it should be a memory, Patrick right where this girl is, his short hair and perfect mouth and—_

_Fuck, he tries to push it back. It's wrong or rude or something for Patrick and him and the girl and never going to happen, and he can't get rid of it and he barely manages to warn her before he's coming._

_He keeps his eyes close and he can hear her shift and feels the movement when she gets off the bed. He opens his eyes and she's standing there. her jeans are still unzipped, but he recognises the awkwardness of someone trying to politely leave a drunken hook-up._

_"I'm gonna—" she says, gesturing over her shoulder at the party. "It was, uh, nice meeting you."_

_"You too, Abi," he says, and he's relieved when she doesn't tell him he got the wrong name._

_"I'll, uh. See you around?"_

_"Sure?"_

_They both give the same, polite smile of no, you won't._

 

* * *

 

Mostly, the reaction to Bill showing up as a guy again is pretty positive.

"Oh, thank fuck," says Mike. "I'm calling Tony, we can finalise the tour schedule and—this is gonna stick, right?"

Bill bites back something snarky and just says, "Yes, Mike. Yes, my cock is here for the duration. You'll probably go another five years without seeing my breasts."

"Aw," Butcher says. Bill smiles at him, but Mike still looks relieved. Bill wonders if he should feel a little offended by it, but Mike's been anxious about touring anyway. "Well, Billvy, I'm gonna miss the—" Butcher sketches the shape of Bill's breasts, a little more generously than he should, "—But I'm pretty fucking glad we won't have to deal with the Wentz Revenge squad anymore. Seriously, we spent any more time with you and..." He shakes his head. "It's a good thing Pete's blog is pretty much unreadable anyway."

"Right," Bill says. "Well, I mean I still need to—"

"Bill, I mean this in a nice way, but fuck your teenage romance," Mike says cheerfully. "We need to go over the stage show."

Cobra turns up the next day, which Bill had forgotten about, or maybe just repressed. It's a relief at first, the chance to get out of his hotel room and away from everyone else who knows. Bill even has a story prepared to explain his mini-hiatus, but he kind of forgot that of the many people he told while wasted, Gabe was the one most likely to believe him.

"So I hear you've been having fun?" Gabe says, staring at him from the doorway of the hotel suite. "Don't say anything, I'm trying to picture it." He ignores Bill crossing his arms over breasts that aren't there anymore and nods approvingly. "Nice. Can you teach me how to do that?"

"Sure just give me a time-machine and five minutes with your mother," Bill says. He pushes past into the room. The rest of the band look at him, eyebrows raised in sync in a way Bill thinks they probably rehearsed. "Who told you?"

"You did. And my whole band. And my cousin, but I don't think he believed you completely. You want to keep something like this a secret, you probably shouldn't share it with the world every time you get a few shots of Jack in you." He sits on the couch, squeezing in between Victoria and Ryland, and says, "But I figured it happened again when Travis started talking about your rack. So what's this about you being the girl that did wrong by our Patrick?" Gabe shakes his head. "Give you a pair of X chromosomes and you us that as an excuse to start breaking hearts?"

Vicky T holds up a hand like she's in class. "Wait, you broke Patrick's heart? Because I'm not sure I'm okay with that."

Bill shrugs. "I kind of broke mine too, for the record."

"Yes, but. Patrick." She gives an uncomfortable shrug.

"So my heart's worth less?" Which is actually kind of insulting and Bill wonders if this is how catfights get started, then remembers that technically, it wouldn't count as a catfight anymore.

"Not less, just... It's Patrick. You know." Another shrug and a meaningful look that makes Bill cross his arms tighter and look back. He knows it was Patrick; Patrick was his fucking boyfriend. Victoria doesn't get to be like that over him to Bill.

"Catfight?" Gabe says, hopeful tone in his voice, looking between them.

Bill sighs and rolls his eyes the same time as Victoria does, but Vicky's close enough to follow it up by elbowing him. "You do get that I'm a guy again? Because I'm not taking my dick out to prove it."

"We appreciate that," Victoria says. "Well, I do. And Nate does as well, probably. Don't know about the rest of the guys."

Nate, Ryland and Alex shrug and give the exact same "eh, maybe" expression and Bill knows they definitely rehearsed that one.

"I really missed him," Bill says, uncrossing one arm to push his hair back. "It just—it sucked." He doesn't say that he went by Patrick's school after and watched him, doesn't say that Patrick was hunched in on himself and it hurt not to go over there and just touch him.

He catches the way they look at each other before Gabe hugs him and says, "Yeah, it's never easy breaking up with a guy because you've got your dick back."

Bill's not sure he wants the sympathy, but he likes the hug anyway, especially when Gabe says, "Sorry to hear you guys broke up. You would've been cute together on prom night."

"We'd have looked ridiculous," Bill says. "I was like a foot taller then him." He tries not to think about it, Patrick in a rented tux and then realises what he's doing. It's such a habit, trying not to think of Patrick like that and so pointless now. He doesn't have to worry about slipping in front of his friends or worse, Patrick, because it's all out in the open and—

And if he doesn't stop himself, he's going to be telling three-fifths of Cobra Starship about the first time he and Patrick had sex, their first fight, about trying to convince himself that it just made more sense to keep seeing Patrick and not anyone else.

"No, you'd have looked fucking adorable," Gabe says. It's the sympathy that gets to Bill, because Gabe says it like he means it, like it's not just a joke. "I know it's years too late for this, but you broke up with your boyfriend. Let's get you wasted."

 

 

 

 

"The thing is," Bill finds himself saying later, "he was really, he was—you know how Patrick is? He was like that, only he knew it even less than he does now." His glass looks suspiciously empty and he picks it up and tips it to check and—yeah, empty. Dammit.

"Aw, poor baby." Victoria pets his hair and he leans against her chest for a moment. She's wearing a low-cut top, but he can't even appreciate it right now. Not as much as her breasts deserve.

"This, this is what it was like," he says lifting his head up. "Just like this, because I couldn't even—" Wait, that didn't come out right. "I mean, I could, no problems with there, but I didn't want to because it wasn't him. He fucked up my whole casual sex thing with that relationship. I mean, he thinks it was all about his heartbreak, but I was there too."

"Poor Bill," she says. "Billia. Bilamina."

"Lily," he says, straightening up and looking for Gabe. Gabe went to raid the minibar, but he got distracted by the TV , and what the fuck? This is his relationship memorial drinking and Gabe's watching pay per view? "Jerk. Asshole."

"Patrick?" Vicky says, sounding kind of surprised.

"No, not Patrick," Bill says, trying to get Gabe's attention. "Patrick wasn't a jerk." He hesitates and then says, "Okay, sometimes he was, but not like a jerk-jerk. He, uh." He turns to look at Vicky and in the dim light, she looks a lot like the person he saw in the mirror two days ago. "He was a really good boyfriend." It's all there, everything he couldn't tell anyone before, on the tip of his tongue, but the thought of saying any of it makes his stomach twist. He's been holding it all inside, keeping it as secret and private, and the thought of having it exposed feels wrong. It's been his for so long, something locked down and held in the back of his mind, and he's not sure what will happen if he lets any of it out.

"Yeah, I bet he was." Vicky elbows him. He knows she's trying to lighten the mood, but it doesn't quite work.

"I really fucking missed fucking him," Bill says. He waves a hand. "Or, you know, getting fucked. Whatever. He just. He had this way of looking at me, like I was—"

"Oh, William Beckett, you don't want to be telling me this," Vicky says, her voice soft and sympathetic. "You'll regret it in the morning. You don't know me enough to be okay telling me this."

"Yeah," Bill says. He looks at the coffee table and traces the grain of the wood with his fingertips. "I'm gonna find Gabe."

He gets up, a little wobbly, and contemplates heading on to the dance floor, but heads toward the exit instead.

It was easier to get over it last time, when all he had to do was forget and repress and ignore that it happened. Except that's complete and utter bullshit, and fuck, he just wants to go back to his room and get wasted. Wasteder. Whatever.

'Hey!" Gabe says, coming up behind him and smacking his hand on Bill's shoulder. Gabe's not noticeable taller than him, but he's expansive in a way Bill really doesn't feel right now, larger than life. "Leaving so soon? We could hit a club. Fifth stage of a break-up is getting down."

"Yeah, that's your solution for everything," Bill says. It kind of is and Gabe does mean it, so Bill smiles and shrugs. "Just not in the mood."

"I can get..." Gabe pauses to calculate, "four-fifths of my band to shimmy for you. Well, maybe three and a half, but..." He nudges Bill.

It's not that it's not tempting, but—" I'm still in stage two," Bill says. "Alcohol and brooding alone in my bedroom, you know?"

"It's been six years, Bill. You should at least be on to four."

"Four?"

"Sex with inappropriate people."

"Yeah ,I'm working the stages out of order," Bill says. He's more drunk than he thought he was and the ground is less stable than it should be. "Come on, Gabe. Walk me back to my room?" He flutters his lashes at Gabe and Gabe laughs.

"Using your feminine wiles on me, William Beckett?"

"Like I need to," Bill says. "You're easy, Gabe Saporta."

"Yeah, you wish," Gabe says, but softly and he lets Bill lean against him. Bill's head is heavy and he leans against Gabe's sweatshirt. There's a Bartskull logo right under his nose. Gabe starts walking, steering him outside.

"I should've stopped after the first time," Bill says. "Shouldn't have kept..." He gestures and it almost tips him off balance. "I didn't mean to do it,' he says.

"Break your hearts," Gabe says, like he's not paying attention.

"No, date him. It just kept happening." They get outside, and the cold air should sober him up, but just makes him shiver. "Not all my fault." If he was a different kind of person, he'd call Patrick up right now and tell him exactly that, but he's not and anyway he's not sure where his phone is. He rubs his nose into Gabe's sweatshirt,

"—get over it," Gabe says from somewhere above him. There's at least half a sentence missing from that, but whatever it was, it was probably true.

Bill nods in agreement and almost trips over a can.

When he gets back, there's a message from Patrick on his cell.

 

 

Bill kind of wishes he was doing this when he was still drunk. Yesterday when he got the message, waiting until he was sober—at least until he could lie flat on his back and not still feel like he was falling over- seemed like a good idea.

Now, he's thinking he should have got it all out the way last night instead of waiting until he was sober, until the hangover had been beaten back with the use of painkillers, french-fries and diet coke, so he'd have something to make him feel less nervous, less focussed on Patrick sitting on the chair in his hotel room.

Patrick's fingers are tapping against his thighs slowly and Bill says, without thinking, "We were halfway through Warped before I could actually tell you I knew when you were wondering if you should say something."

Patrick looks confused.

"You do that when you've got something you don't want to say. I figured that out on our second date or something." It went on the list of things Bill was careful not to mention until they'd been friends, on tour and in each other's pockets and vans enough for it to be reasonable for him to notice.

Patrick lets out this little huff, not quite laughing. "Okay. I—if we're being honest, the truth is." He rubs the back of his neck. "When you dumped me, I wasn't really surprised." He sounds weird, almost guilty. "Devastated, yes, unprepared, and—but not actually. You know. Surprised."

Bill's not sure what his expression says, but it makes Patrick adjust his glasses and say, in a rush, "I thought you were out of my league, that there was no way a girl like you would be interested in a guy like me, and then I was right." He frowns, looks down again at his hand where it's tapping against his leg. "Pete was—you know how Pete is with his friends. He told me that I was being stupid and insecure, that I was in a band and fucking awesome and..." he rolls his eyes and Bill can fill in the blanks, Pete's extravagant praise. "And Joe was the only that actually met you, and he said I was being dumb, that anyone could see you liked me, that some girls just had strange and bizarre tastes..." he half-smiles and Bill can practically hear Joe say it. "So when you didn't introduce me to your friends and didn't let me take you home or want to go out, like outside much, I just. I told myself that I was being stupid for thinking there was something wrong, and then after I told myself I was stupid for not admitting something was."

"Patrick, that's dumb, why—"

"Can you—" Patrick starts to say, then stops and bites his lip.

"What?"

Patrick shakes his head. "Forget it, it's stupid."

"I'll add it to the list. What?"

"Can you not say my name? It's—you say it like Lily did and it's. It's, uh. Strange?"

"I said it like I always do," Bill says, crossing his arms.

"Yeah, but now it sounds..." Patrick gives up the explanation. "I said it was stupid."

"Okay," Bill says when he can't think of anything better. "Why do you think I went out with you or stayed in with you if I was—if I thought you were..." he trails off because all the words at the end of that sentence seem too harsh, wrong.

"Entertainment?" Patrick says. "It only made sense at the time because I thought you, you know. Liked me. After, I thought I should've known better. That I did know better, really. It made sense if you never cared about me at all, that explained why you broke up with me by text and let me think we were—you know, that it was mutual."

Bill folds his arms across his chest and says, "You know, you weren't that easy and I wasn't that bored, I mean, I had other options, you weren't the last man on earth. I could've—" he uncrosses his arms to gesture at the past. "I could have spent the whole summer just hanging with the Siskas and playing computer games and getting myself off in front of the mirror." Patrick looks down at the last and flushes and Bill feels himself almost do the same. "My point is, it was a lot of work if it was just entertainment."

"It makes more sense now," Patrick says, then makes a kind-of gesture with his hand. "Or it doesn't make sense, but in a different way."

"That's helpful," Bill says. "Or really not."

"Okay, what I mean is that I get," Patrick says, adjusting his hat, "That you had good reasons for leaving me. I don't—" He shrugs. "I guess I don't know what my reaction would have been. It's not something they cover in health class. "I don't know why you started with me. I never really got that, and it makes less sense if I think that you're..." he gestures at Bill. "I'm not your type."

"Not—I didn't pick you up and that's exactly what I did Patrick," Bill says before Patrick can interrupt, "I came on to you at a party and deliberately picked you up, but I didn't do it because you were a type, I did it because..." And the reason is simple, which doesn't make it easy to say. "I liked it," Bill says. "Being with you. I didn't plan on it, I had—" he drops his head and laughs because it's all those things that seemed so logical back then just look cheesy and juvenile now. "I had a list of things to do, change in the girl's locker rooms at the pool, get into a club without having to wait, get laid a lot." He's trying for the same casual voice he used telling the guys about this, and he's aware that he probably failed at it then, too. "I wasn't going to be around long enough to break through the glass ceiling or, I don't know, try out for cheerleading or women's volleyball or anything real. It was going to be a few weeks, a few months max, like a vacation or an exchange trip or something, and I was seventeen, so. Sex."

Patrick shakes his head, like Bill's missing the point. "I was... Bill, me back then? We both know you could have done better." He holds up a hand when Bill starts to speak and says, "No, shut up, seriously. This isn't me being insecure, this is high school and the fact that I didn't have a clue what I was doing. You were my first girlfriend and you know you could have had someone more attractive and less—" He shrugs. "Someone who knew what he was doing, you know?"

"I was working on instinct," Bill says. "You just. You _appealed_ ," he says, flailing a little. He honestly can't think of a better way to put it, that combination of instinctive like and the way his brain had chimed in with reasons—he's cute, musician, it won't matter if you're not great first time round because he'll be so fucking impressed at getting laid anyway, his voice—and the way Patrick had just been good, had been good to touch and lean against and listen to, talk to. "You were there, you know I was too demanding to have faked anything. Which would have been completely stupid anyway, since the whole point was to enjoy it."

"Pushy," Patrick mutters, the old joke. "In a good way."

"Right." Bill smiles at him and there it is, that feeling of things falling back in to place. "I wasn't honest, but I didn't lie. Apart from about my name and past and..." He tries a half-smile, and yes, judging by Patrick's returned smile they are at about the place to make jokes like that. "Maybe I should have told you. Not that you would've necessarily believed me, but I—" He pauses and pushes his hair back with one hand. "Honestly, it's not just that I didn't know if you'd believe me and I didn't think you—- I knew you wouldn't get homophobic or—I just, I didn't want to break up with you. Which, in retrospect, doesn't actually make a lot of sense."

"It kind of does," Patrick says, but Bill can't tell if he means it or if he's just being kind.

Bill shrugs. "I didn't want you to look at us and think, freak. Or that it didn't count."

"I never thought it didn't count," Patrick says. "I sometimes wished it never happened, but—"

"I didn't," Bill says. "Just for the record, I never wished that."

Patrick holds his arms out from his body, a little awkwardly, but Bill accepts the gesture and the hug. It's strong, brisk, because Patrick gives good hugs for a guy, with a guy, and it lasts for exactly 28 seconds, not that he's counting. It's not the same as when he was Lily, not the same attempt to wrap themselves up in each other, but it's the kind of hug he's used to from his friends, and that's pretty good right now. Bill can feel Patrick start to shift a little, so he pulls back first.

"We're good?" Bill says.

Patrick nods and Bill recognises that nod, that expression. "We're good," Patrick says, which means, not yet, but I'm determined and we will be.

Bill lets himself smile properly, relief wide across his face and leaves his hand on Patrick's shoulder. "That's—come on, let's go find the others before they start freaking out."

Patrick nods and Bill waves him through the door first and then takes a deep breath and looks at his hand. There's a ghost sensation, the way it still wants to follow the exact curve of Patrick's shoulder, but he clenches it into a fist and walks briskly out the door.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_"Hey!" Bill says. His heart fucking stutters, he can actually hear it skip a beat. He wasn't expecting this, he needed to be prepared and braced and—he's smiling too brightly._

_"Hey," Patrick says, looking slightly confused. "William Beckett, right? You're a friend of Alex's?" He looks good, he looks happy, sweaty coming off stage, but good._

_"Yeah, that's me," Bill says. He could move back, there's space behind him and this really isn't the kind of bar to pick up boys in, but. It's just chance, running into Patrick like this, but it's the kind of chance that's lucky, that's opportunity. He's wearing a baseball cap and he has to adjust the brim slightly, and he's shorter or Bill's taller. Whichever._

_Someone coming off stage pushes into him and he stumbles forward, bumping against Bill. Bill's hands go up to brace him and one hand is curled around his upper arm, one on his chest. He can feel the warmth and the T-shirt's damp which isn't exactly nicely, but it sets up a vivid sense memory, a rush of Patrick hot and sweaty and against him almost exactly like this._

_"You're here for the show?" Patrick says, moving back just a little. Bill resists the urge to follow him_

_"Yeah, I'm filling in for Kevin, he had that—you know." Bill rolls his eyes and Patrick laughs, head going down a little and Bill grins at the top of his head._

_"Is he still doing that? Because seriously, I—"_

_"Patrick!" Pete Wentz jumps off stage and catches himself on Patrick, one hand curling round his neck. Patrick staggers, but braces himself and looks up at him. He's smiling and it's fond, affectionate and real. "What the fuck? I turn my back for one minute and you're sneaking out with strange guys when we should be getting our stuff together."_

_"Well you weren't and the rota said it was my turn," Patrick says, deadpan. "And this isn't a strange guy, this is William Beckett, he's standing in for Kevin."_

_"Hey, any friend of Patrick's," Pete Wentz says. Bill straightens up slightly. It's weird, because he knows who Pete Wentz is, of course, and he's seen him on stage a few times, but Patrick had been trying to get them to meet and know they are and it's. It's just weird This is Pete Wentz, who's made albums, who Bill's seen in real shows at real clubs and is someone, a recognised name._

_Pete smiles at Bill and then his smile deepens a little and his eyes dip. It's not a come-on, not quite, but he's definitely checking Bill out, that little extra look that's more about recognition than actually hitting on someone._

_It's the fact that he is that makes Bill realise that Patrick isn't, not even a little. He's smiling at Bill, friendly the way you do when you meet someone you kind of know and don't have anything against. There's nothing more to it._

_Which is fine, it's not like Bill was expecting Patrick to have some kind of instinctive reaction, like pheromones or some subconscious recognition. Bill's just some guy he sort of knows from around._

_"Jesus, Stumph, you're fucking drenched," Pete Wentz says, lifting his hand off Patrick and then trying to wipe it on Patrick's T-shirt, like that's any better. Patrick defends himself and Pete backs off, giggling and Bill knew they were friends, but he thought they were different friends, not the kind that Patrick's so easy around._

_Bill angles himself in a little, pushing his hair back off his face in a way he knows looks good, looks casual and meaningless. Starting from scratch, maybe, but it's not like Bill hasn't done this before, like Patrick's a guy in a club. "You guys looked good on stage." And then, because he knows Patrick, "that riff, how you opened up the second song? With the sharp, the kind of dadadadadum thing?"_

_"Yeah? That was Patrick's idea," Pete says, He puts his hands on Patrick's shoulders. "All grown up and thinking of his own intros."_

_"Cool," Bill says. He sticks his hands in his pockets and it shoves his waistband down a little, shows him off._

_"So we've got to pack up, but I guess I'll see you around some time," Patrick says, and he smiles at Bill. It's not a bad smile, but there's nothing more to it and Bill fights down that mixture of disappointment and embarrassment that covers up the loss. He hasn't done anything, and Patrick's not rejecting him or anything, he just hasn't noticed, so._

_So he should probably just stop this and—or not stop, exactly, but they have stuff in common, they could be friends, hang out in the same social circles even if they're not hanging out together or anything. He just needs to adjust to it, to Patrick's lack of reaction._

_"Sure," he says. It's easy. He was never Patrick's boyfriend, never really got introduced to his friends._

_It's not like there's anything to miss._


	4. Fic: When you were sweet, 4/4, bandom, non-gen

They start touring again, which isn't as much of a relief as it usually is. Bill loves touring, straight up loves it. It's everything he likes best in his life, as long as you don't think about eating or sleeping. His best people with him, going on stage, looking for familiar faces in different crowds every night. Not having to think about anything, because it's so all consuming and he knows that some people hate that, the way 45 minutes on stage can eat up your entire day and leave you wrecked the day after, but Bill honestly, genuinely likes that. He even likes the bad moods he gets on tour, the way they have reasons and causes, like the quality of a grudge or fight is somehow better, like being back at elementary school.

He was looking forward to that, but he'd, not forgotten, so much as deliberately overlooked the fact that one of the things he was looking forward to was touring with his friends. Which meant, fuck, all of them.

It's not that Bill doesn't appreciate the effort Patrick's putting in to being normal, the way he's spending time around Bill and the band, the way he's talking about music and sitting next to Bill if there's an open seat, but not making a point of it. Bill appreciates that, he does, it's just that it's actually a lot like the early days after the first time, when Bill was trying to find his way to being Patrick's friend and having to relearn all these facts about him and unlearn all the habits of touching.

Not quite the same, because now Bill is a friend, a good friend, the kind of friend that you're cool sharing space with, squashed up next to on a bench or leaning against in a line or something.

Hugging when you come off stage after joining in on Sophomore Slump, Patrick then Pete or maybe Joe if he's near, but that's it. Bill was thinking about it like it'd be like it was on the last tour, when that summer was sectioned off from both their lives and had nothing to do with anything happening now. Or maybe it'd go the other way and it'd be awkward, painful, distant, a time to retreat and lick their wounds.

Instead it's this, with Patrick being deliberately, carefully okay and pushing his band to be the same, and Bill feeling on edge and aware, crowded and missing at the same time.

"What did you expect?" Sisky says without looking away from the laptop. "Really, being sane about everything, being rational and sensible, being like that, what did you expect?"

He kind of wants to say that he wasn't expecting to have to be rational, sensible and sane about everything, but he also doesn't want to admit that. Instead, he just nods at Sisky sitting at the counter, concentrating hard on the screen.

"I'd feel so much better about you spending all day on that thing if I knew you were using it for porn," Bill says.

"I can quit anytime I want," Sisky says. "Except for the stopping bit." He turns the screen around to face Bill. "What do you think?"

"Ceiling cat is not amused," Bill says.

"Ceiling cat wishes he was this fucking cool," Sisky says, adding an extra exclamation mark to a traumatised looking kitten.

Bill contemplates trying to explain to Sisky that just because you like something, that doesn't make it cool, but he's not sure he really wants to be the one to disillusion him, so he joins Mike in the front and they go over some of the new songs.

The bus pulls in and the driver calls out fifteen minute break, long enough to stretch their legs and get some fresh air, but Bill and Mike are just about getting the bridge on what Bill's pretty sure is their next single in to shape. They look up when someone knocks and the bus door opens and Patrick walks in. "I knocked," he says, miming it. "Uh, can I come in?"

Mike looks at Bill for his cue, but Bill just shrugs. "Sure, it's fine."

Patrick hovers In the doorway, then pulls himself together and steps in. "So you're still working on that new song, the one with the dreaming girl and the MST3K reference?" Patrick says.

"Yeah," Mike says, like he's trying to verbally defuse a bomb. "But we're calling it Sleep now. Easier to fit on the liner notes." He eyes them like he's expecting them to start having passionate sex on his bunk or maybe pull out a knife or something.

"Yeah, that would work," Patrick says. "You fixed that problem on the bridge?"

"We're still working on that," Mike says, shifting position slightly, looking at the door longingly. Patrick meets Bill's eyes and rolls his own and Bill smirks back. It's a moment of being in sync, shared irritation and amusement and it's broken when Patrick says, "So I didn't just come here to see how you're doing with the next album. I wanted to ask Bill something."

Mike looks like the bomb's just started ticking faster, but Bill waves him off the bus and stands up to get a drink out of the fridge. He's not thirsty, but he wants something to do with his hands, something to look at that's not Patrick. Bill doesn't feel clumsy or awkward, but that's because he's concentrating on not letting himself be.

He takes a sip of the coke and then rolls the can between his hands, letting them get cold. "So, you wanted to say something?" He says when Patrick stays silent.

Patrick jumps and looks up at Bill. "Oh! Right, yeah. I wanted to ask you about Pete and Joe and Andy. They don't know about—" he shrugs into the pause. "I mean, I haven't said anything, I don't know if you want me to." He pushes his glasses up a little. "If this is. I mean, if it's going to happen again, Pete's probably a good person to know, to run interference with you and the label and fake you being around, that kind of thing. If you wanted to tell them."

"Oh," Bill says. He crosses his arms and leans back. "You really haven't said anything?" and then, because that could be taken the wrong way and it feels like it'd be so easy to do that right now, he adds, "Not that I don't believe you, I'm just surprised." He looks at his hands and says, "You don't want them to know?" It's probably better if they don't, easier at least, but the idea that Patrick doesn't want them to know sends a queasy feeling through his stomach.

He doesn't need to look at Patrick to know that he's biting his lower lip, thinking about what to say, how to say it. "I don't know," Patrick says. "I guess I want them to know, but I don't want to have to tell them. Or maybe I want to tell them, but I don't want them to know." He smiles, but mostly at himself. "I'm not the most coherent about—"

"Lily?"

"You." Patrick looks at him, meeting his eyes. It's not the same expression he had back then, but it's an echo of it. Something soft and affectionate and maybe still a little broken. His T-shirt is old, stretched out at the neck enough for Bill to see where he caught the sun, skin turning pink.

If Bill didn't know Patrick, he thinks, he'd probably still offer to go down on him or make out with him, just for looking like that. In that moment he can see how Patrick would look if this was the first time he'd ever seen him, without two months of dating and seven years of friendship colouring everything, if this was the first time they'd met.

And for a second, he wishes it was, that Patrick was new and he was being introduced for the first time and then he remembers that it wouldn't matter, because Patrick would still turn him down—more politely, maybe, if he was a stranger—but still, no.

"It's fine, you can—you know, it's your choice," he says. He knows he sounds sharper than he should, more abrupt, even without Patrick flinching back. "They're your friends first."

Patrick retreats, pulls back into himself just enough to make Bill realise he was reaching out a little before. "I didn't want to make it awkward for you," he says. He shrugs and Bill can see pale skin just where the t-shirt's slipped. Patrick needs to wear more sunblock or stay in the shade more and it's distracting Bill, because he knows exactly how it would feel to touch, the skin just a little warmer than it should be.

"I think we've gone past critical awkward mass," Bill says. "Unless someone turns out to be a long lost cousin or there's accidental public nudity, it's all coasting from here."

 

 

He debates not doing it. Patrick's been deliberately casual about touching him, overly normal, but Bill hasn't actually made the first move since he switched back to being a guy. It's the right thing to do, he knows, what the moment calls for to make it seem all okay again, and he's still not sure if he can do it.

 

 

He puts his coke down and comes out from behind the counter. It's a deliberate gesture, not the fast and easy way he'd have hugged Patrick before, but Patrick doesn't pull back. It's okay, it's fine and Bill's perfectly okay, he is, doing this. His hand must feel like ice after holding his drink, but Patrick doesn't jump at all and it's just a normal hug, platonic. Bill concentrates on that, focussing on how weird it feels to be awkward about this, the way it's uncomfortably careful and he doesn't let himself think about anything else.

Patrick is warm and solid and he's good to touch, always has been, just something about him that makes him feel appealing. Bill pulls back as casually as he can and goes back behind the counter, finishing off his coke.

"Okay," Patrick says. He hesitates, then nods, pulling his cap a little more securely on. "I'll, I guess I'll see you later?"

Bill smiles his agreement and Patrick leaves, then he lets his head fall forward, bending down almost in half so it's leaning against the top of the can. It's a cold, hard circle against his forehead and it'll leave a weird mark if he stays like this too long

Which is kind of pathetic, sure, but the alternative is going into the bus shower and jerking off and if Bill's going to be pathetic, at least he won't be creepy-pathetic.

 

 

 

It feels weirdly like he's gate-crashing, because he doesn't know the guy throwing this party. He's just someone Victoria knows, with a house and a pool and, apparently, no sense, because he invited her and her band and pretty much the whole tour over for a party.

It's hot and muggy and the pool is already filled with more musicians than can possibly be good for it. The owner will probably have to have the thing deep cleaned and disinfected because Bill knows for a fact that at least two techs are using it as a chlorinated bath, and that's even before someone threw in Sisky fully clothed. Bill loves Sisky like a brother, but they've been touring for weeks and he's not even close to fresh.

Andy and Butcher are talking about something by the food, Andy holding a bowl of popcorn protectively and the sight makes Bill relax a little. Fall Out Boy collectively are still weird around him, leftover anger and confused affection, but they're okay with his band and he thinks -hopes- it'll work out.

Patrick's even talking to Mike and maybe it's the fact they've both been lurking by the booze table, but Cardin looks less terrified of Patrick going psycho and Patrick looks happy, gesturing enthusiastically and spilling half his drink when he makes a point about something.

It's not like him to be quiet and on the edges on his own, but everyone is loud and busy and no-one seems to have noticed that he's not a part of it, and it's a relief not to have to watch himself, not to worry about his guys worrying about him. A relief, and kind of depressing because it looks like they were right ton worry because he's just standing here quietly and watching Patrick.

He needs to be over this already.

"Hey, Billvy, hiding over here in the shadows." Travis's hands land on Bill's shoulder, hard enough to make him jerk and he follows Bill's gaze. " Shit, are they still talking about Thundercats versus..." he trails off and Bill resolutely doesn't look at him, not even when his hands tense a little, and he says "Holy fuck," like he's almost impressed.

"Holy fuck," Travis says. "Holy fucking fuck. You're still—"

"Shut the fuck up!" Bill says. He's skinnier than Travis and maybe even a couple inches shorter, but he's got momentum and he shoves his hand over Travis's mouth and pushes him back into the garden, behind an orange tree. He ducks to avoid an unripe orange and hisses, "I don't know what you think you—"

Travis licks the palm of his hand and Bill pulls it back automatically. "You, motherfucking mooning over Patrick. T—That's not first time nostalgia—"

"He was not my first—"

"That's you wanting to jump his bones and take him home and have his kids." Travis stops talking and starts laughing. "Which a month ago was a lot less of a metaphor. Fuck, Bill." He definitely sounds more impressed than anything else.

"Yeah, you wish," Bill mutters. "I am not still hung up on a relationship I had when I was sixteen."

"Hey, it's okay, I get it." Travis grins and then says, sing-song. "You like him, you want to kiss him. William and Patrick, sitting in a tree K-I-S-S—You should go for it," Travis says. He slaps Bill on the back and then slides his hand around to his shoulder, enthusiastic about playing cupid. "He's not seeing anyone, right? And he already knows that you're occasionally a girl and frequently a bitch—" he shifts his body away, grinning and waiting for Bill to hit him for that. Bill elbows him, but his heart's not in it and Travis frowns. "Seriously, I get that you have history, but fuck it. Next time you see him, just—" He mimes frenching someone two foot shorter than him. It's funny-creepy-awesome, in the way Travie usually is, but Bill's not in the mood to appreciate it.

"Patrick doesn't go around kissing men," Bill says, slowly like he's talking to a child. "Patrick, just in case there was some confusion, is pretty fucking straight."

"Patrick kisses guys," Travis says. "I've kissed Patrick. Bill, what the fuck, you were there, you saw me at Pete's party."

"Yeah, and I saw him turn you down after," Bill says.

Travis shrugs. "Yeah, but dude, I was wasted. And I think my girlfriend was there." He pulls Bill in for a hug and Travis is one of the few people that can make Bill feel small, covered. "It's hard to accept, but there are lots of reasons for someone to not want to have sex with me that aren't because I've got a dick."

"No, really?" Bill says, trying to look shocked. "And look, it's not just you, but I haven't heard anything and it's not like I wasn't listening, so..." he shrugs, trying to make it casual instead of bitter. It's not unrequited love or whatever, it's just missed potential or something like that. Okay?"

"Okay, if you're going to be deeply deluded about it," Travis says.

"I'm not—look, I'm being sensible about this," Bill says. "I'm being sane."

"Convincing," Travis says. "Yeah, it's easy to see that, what with you lurking in the shadows and everything."

"Travis, please." Bill pushes his hair back off his face. "Don't make this something it's not. I'm moving past this." He leans back against the tree and wishes for a moment that he had the kind of friends that hated the emotional stuff, that just fucked off or were uncomfortably silent when anyone was miserable like this. "He's over it, I'm getting there." He just needs to remember how he did it the last time.

 

 

"If he was over it, he wouldn't have slept with you again," Travis says. "Patrick's not casual about that kind of thing."

"He didn't sleep with me, he slept with Lily."

"Who is you, unless you're getting split personality about the whole thing,"

"He didn't know that," Bill says.

"And now he does."

"Exactly!" Bill says. Travis looks at him, frowning like one of them has started speaking mandarin or something. Bill brushes past him and walks back to the party before Travis can say anything.

He touches base with Gabe and joins in with the dancing and avoids getting drunk. He's already on edge, unsure of his own actions and he doesn't trust himself not to do something stupid if he doesn't watch it. He sticks to beer and lets his friends be a distraction, but he still finds himself staying outside when they head in. It's getting just a little to cool to be out by the pool, night breeze taking away all of the summer heat, but he takes off his shoes and sits on the edge of the pool.

It's the kind of quiet that you only get when people are being noisy in the distance and Bill lets his feet dangle in the water.

He hears someone walk up behind him and he's not surprised when he looks over and sees Patrick. It might be easier, he thinks, to get over him if he didn't keep seeing him.

"Hey," Patrick says. "How's the water?"

"Wet," Bill says. It's odd, looking up at Patrick. Patrick's not slurring, but there's a softness to him that means he's probably a lot less sober than Bill is right now.

"I feel bad," Patrick says. "For making you feel..." he shrugs. "I don't know, I know it was probably a weird time for you too, and..." he trails off, tilting his head up to look at the sky.

"Pete kind of gives the impression that I fucked you up pretty well," Bill says. He's not drunk, not really, but Patrick kind of is and that makes it easier to speak. "And that it's only because you're an amazing person with great emotional grounding that you're emotionally healthy now, mostly."

Patrick's laugh is closer to a giggle. "Pete's—you know, he's Pete about this. It's not... It hurt, but it's— you know, it made me cautious after you—after it ended, but that's not a bad thing, right? To be careful about getting seriously involved with someone."

"Wow, you are well-balanced about this," Bill says after a moment. "I'm not that zen about any of my exes."

"I guess. It helps that you had actual reasons," Patrick says. "And you're my friend, I can't afford to be exish about you or avoid you or normal things like that. I've got to get over it or I lose you twice. Three times, maybe."

I don't want you to, Bill thinks. It's clear enough that he's afraid, just for a second, that he thought it out loud. It's a painful thought, but it's true. He doesn't want Patrick to get over it, he doesn't want him to be philosophical about it. He doesn't want Patrick to hate him, but he doesn't want him to move past him, to put him, them, in the past.

He's not that guy, except he's starting to suspect he is, because he wants Patrick to stay a little fucked about what happened, so long as it means that it was important, not just act one, scene one in his love life. Was it—it's a nasty thought, one he almost doesn't want to think, but it's still there. Was it on purpose, the way he broke up with him? Maybe he didn't want to do it any better, to make it easier on Patrick, maybe he'd wanted him to be heart broken and—

No, he's pretty sure he was just being really, really stupid about the whole thing, thoughtless and stupid and cruel, but not deliberately. He thinks. But then it's not like he's going to win any prizes for self-knowledge, is he, and what's he doing now, sitting out here with Patrick?

Patrick's put his arm around his waist, Bill realises. Leaning in with the heaviness of someone who's drunk just a bit more than they should, just enough to forget how much their own body weighs. His head's still tilted up to the stars, or where they would be if the lights weren't so bright.

"Hey," Patrick says. He reaches up to touch the side of Bill's face, slight pressure on his cheek and Bill's head turns down to look at him and Patrick kisses him. The world tilts and Bill has a moment of disorientation so strong, he wonders if he's the drunk one, because this is—Patrick's kissing him and he tastes of something vaguely herbal and very alcoholic and Patrick's kissing him and—

Patrick doesn't kiss him. Patrick kisses her, kisses Lily, he doesn't kiss Bill and certainly not like this, easy and focused and familiar. His hand is around Bill's waist, resting on his hip and there are jokes about low-rise girl-cut jeans showing off his girlish figure, but Bill knows himself, knows his body and the differences in the bone between male and female and Patrick will notice them any second now. Bill closes his eyes and lets himself have this, just this moment, then he pulls back and leans his head against Patrick's shoulder.

"You don't want to do this," Bill says quietly.

"Pretty sure I do," Patrick says. He moves in again, one hand coming up to rest on Bill's thigh. Bill catches it, holds it still. Patrick stops, frowning a little.

"No, you don't," Bill says, trying to make the words as clear as possible. "Patrick, you don't do this."

"Kiss someone I like at a party?"

"Kiss me, kiss guys," Bill says. It's probably healing, he tells himself, necessary and cathartic to actually say the words, like he'll be better for it even if it doesn't feel that way right now.

"No, you—look, whatever revelation you think is happening here..." Bill trails off and tries to think of a better way to put it than, "Just because your ex-girlfriend has a dick, it doesn't make you gay."

But then Patrick's kissing him again, his hand flexing on Bill's thigh and he moves so he's on his knees, facing Bill, one hand on his shoulder, brushing his mouth against Bill's and Bill's hands go up to Patrick's waist to steady him automatically.

Bill's hands are bigger, his fingers are longer and they spread across more of Patrick's skin, soft feel of his stomach and he's not even touching skin, just the slightly damp cloth of Patrick's T-shirt and he opens his mouth, kisses Patrick back. He can feel Patrick grin, feel him push a little harder, press against him and Bill's more than half-hard already, and the thought of it, Patrick's weight against him is enough to make him groan. He can picture it so clearly, and then that stupid little voice of reality starts screaming again.

_Bad idea, don't make this any more awkward than it already is. If he wanted you, it says, you would have found that out any time in the past seven years._

He pushes himself away from Patrick, sliding back and leaving Patrick kneeling and staring at him. "I can't do this," he says. "This isn't—" You. Me. "Us. I don't want to do this again."

Patrick looks at him like Bill's just punched him. He's backlit by the pool lights. "No," Patrick says. "My fault, I shouldn't have—I'm sorry, I just thought we could—fuck it." He shakes his head, his face pale and stiff. "I'm just going to—" he gets to his feet awkwardly, unsteady enough that Bill wants to pull him away from the edge of the pool, and then walks off back to the house.

Bill leans back against the paving, hitting the back of his head a little too hard and contemplates sliding into the pool and staying under for the next twenty years or so.

 

 

 

 

 

Bill doesn't actually need coffee in the morning, not the way Sisky or Tony or Mike does. It's just that the world is nicer for him and everyone around him if he has his black coffee, two sugars, before anyone tries to talk to him.

Pete fucking Wentz has known him long enough that he should be aware of that fact, instead of turning up on his bus while Bill's still trying to remember how the coffee maker works.

"So Patrick thinks you don't want him," Pete says.

"Hello is just too last year for you, huh?" Bill says, trying to find the on-switch.

Pete jumps up on to the counter next to him, heels kicking at the door. He gives Bill a sidelong glance and says, "It's seriously weird looking at you now. Like, I see you, but there's also this overlay of you as a woman, and it's not actually that different."

"Gee, I've never heard that one before," Bill says flatly. "How original. Maybe you can smash a watermelon or tell a knock-knock joke as an encore. Cover Stairway To Heaven on the next album."

"I'm guessing you're not over me calling you a flat-chested starfucker groupie?" Pete says. "Helps if you plug it in," he adds.

"I'm completely over it," Bill says, finding the wall-socket and switching it on triumphantly. "And starfucker groupie is redundant."

Pete nods. "In my defence, I really fucking hated you."

"I really, really got that."

"Yeah, I don't think you did." Pete sits down next to him. "From my point of view, it was like—There's Patrick, and you know how he was at that age. Even more fucking adorable than he is now, like sometimes I actually wanted to ask his mom what the fuck she was thinking, letting him hang around with me. And he was pretty well-balanced, but not exactly brimming over with confidence, you know?" He raises an eyebrow at Bill like he actually wants an answer.

"I don't need another round of how I did him wrong, Pete. I've had that from you and Andy both."

"Okay, the point is, after you guys..." He mimes an explosion with his hands. "After he stopped being miserable, after he stopped feeling like he was a dumb schmuck and no-one would ever really be interested in him, after—"

"Tell me this has a point," Bill says.

Pete rolls his eyes but talks more quickly. "With his next girlfriend, he played things closer to the chest. He didn't really talk about her until they were properly dating, and we knew he really liked Anna when he stopped mentioning her for about a month, and then he introduced her as his girlfriend. You get me?" He sighs, big and dramatic, at Bill's what the fuck expression. "Look, he doesn't make a move on someone he likes unless he's really sure it's worth the risk."

Pete's trying to tell him something and Bill's honestly just confused about what it is. "I don't—"

"I know he kissed you," Pete says. "And I know you guys fucked before you got your dick back."

And oh, right. When he'd told Patrick he could tell his guys about everything, Bill had somehow forgotten that this meant Patrick might actually tell them everything. Pete's looking at him and Bill feels uncomfortably exposed, all his bad ideas that he regrets but wouldn't take back on display. He stalls for time by turning back to the coffee maker, finding a cleanish cup with unnecessary focus.

"Patrick wouldn't have tried to kiss you if he didn't think you might work. Or," Pete adds, taking the coffee from Bill, "if he didn't at least hope it enough to try." He grins, wide enough to make any passing dentist happy. "He can be stupidly brave about lots of things, but that's not one of them. Fuck, you make terrible coffee." Pete grimaces and Bill rolls his eyes and attempts to snatch it back.

"Hey, I didn't say I wouldn't drink it!" Pete says, defending the cup. "So what I don't know is why you'd turn him down. Or anyone, but in particular you when you're obviously still hung up on him."

Bill isn't really prepared to deal with this, not with Pete being casual and smiling a little in a way that reminds Bill that Pete has a beaten the crap out of people for hurting his friends in the past. "You're exaggerating," Bill says.

"Bill, you slept with him." Pete leans forward and pokes Bill in the chest. "You slept with _him_. Patrick may have had sex with his old summer fling, but you slept with Patrick." He takes another sip of coffee and keeps his eyes on Bill, like he's waiting for him to run.

"I didn't intend to," Bill says, which is as close to an excuse as he can get.

"You didn't intend to do a lot of things," Pete says with an edge to his voice. "But you still did them."

Bill wants to explain, but the only thing he can think of is, "In my defence, it's really hard not sleeping with him," and he doesn't think that'll go over very well. He has the unnerving suspicion that he won't be able to lie to Pete, not with him watching Bill like this, so he offers up a different truth instead. "Okay, you're right, I did sleep with—" And he spent years keeping them apart in his head, Patrick-his-boyfriend and Patrick-his-friend, and even if he knew that was a bullshit difference, it's still hard to actually say this, "Patrick, the guy who's been my friend for the past seven years, the guy I've been on tours with and—" He cuts himself off. "But Patrick didn't sleep with William Beckett, he slept with Lily, who is, was, a girl. And I'm not. And if Patrick had any interest in guys, I would have seen it by now, but he doesn't and maybe he got a bit confused last night, but..." He trails off because Pete's looking at him with the strangest expression.

Pete puts his cup down by his side very carefully, and says, "That's what this is about?"

"The fact that Patrick's never shown any interest in me and it's not like I'm not..." Bill tries to find the right word and settles on, Bill doesn't actually care about his tendency to get flirty and laidback and get laid when he's drunk, but he's not sure how to point out that Patrick had to know he could have had him any one of a hundred times without it sounding wrong. "Accessible." He pushes his hair back off his face. Pete should have picked up on Patrick's basic lack of interest in fucking guys by now, but it looks like Bill's going to have to point out that Patrick not minding being hugged and leaned on and petted a little does not equate to Patrick actually want to give some guy a hand-job. "I've been there, he's done the thanks-but-no-thanks."

Pete looks at him for a moment, waiting for Bill to focus on him. "Wow, you're really fucking dumb sometimes."

"What?"

"Let me guess, you made a pass at a party or after a show, something casual and friendly?"

"I never actually—"

"Bill, Patrick doesn't do casual hook-ups with people he likes, that doesn't mean he doesn't do guys." Pete winces. "I walked in on him and his boyfriend once, before the punk-ass bitch decided to move back into his nice little closet and told Patrick that he'd just been experimenting. Like he needed to experiment for three months to come to that conclusion." Pete snorts and looks at Bill, taking in his expression with smug amusement. "You were the first guy to break his heart, not the only one. Girl. Guy. Whatever."

Bill's distantly aware that he's giving Pete exactly the reaction he wants, mouth hanging open, speechless, but he can't even think about it except to say, "No, you're wrong. Patrick doesn't—"

"It was scarring! I love Patrick, but I really don't need to see him blowing some guy, especially when I have to look his mother in the fact the next day and tell her what a great time he had on tour." Pete shudders dramatically.

"I would have heard!" Bill says. It's a small label with some of the biggest mouths in the business and the Chicago scene isn't that big. "This is just your idea of a joke."

Pete grins. "It'd be a great one, right?" He reaches for his coffee again. "But after David the punk-ass bitch, there was Anna and then no-one for a while after that, and—look, Patrick's shortest ever relationship was with you."

Bill's still lagging five minutes behind the rest of the conversation. "He dates guys? Dated a—You walked in him giving his boyfriend a blow-job?" He can hear his voice getting more and more high-pitched and he winces and tries to bring it down. When was that? How old was—before Anna, so it must have been before Andy joined the band and—

David? He tries to think of all the Davids he knows and gets a photostream of them and Patrick, all the ones he's met or just seen on TV. He tries to think of Patrick, go through every memory he has of him, but he keeps running into "boyfriend" and "does guys" and derails him before he can actually bring one into focus.

"But not me?" he says, and then winces at how pathetic that came out. "So the reason he turned me down wasn't because I was a guy, he just wasn't interested in me?"

"I'm guessing, and I wasn't there when he—" Pete puts his cup down so he can make the quote marks, "'turned you down' but if you came across like it was casual, like it was something meaningless, then he probably assumed you didn't mean anything by it." There's an "idiot" strongly implied there, even if Pete doesn't actually say the words. "He already likes you," Pete says. "He didn't know that you liked him. And now he thinks you're just not interested."

It hits Bill then, seven years worth of memories and last night, last night when Patrick had—when he had—he'd pushed him away and said he didn't want this, but he did, does, he just didn't know.

"I don't know if you're a good thing for him,' Pete says. "As some people have pointed out my judgement isn't great with this kind of thing." He hops off the counter. "And if you don't want something to happen, fine. It's not like this is his only chance at love. But..." he shrugs. "I'm picking up that you're kind of all about him too, and he deserves that."

 

 

Patrick sees Bill coming, which is probably why he turns around and starts walking back, too fast to even fake being casual. Bill's long legs are good for more than just aesthetics and buying top-shelf magazines, though, so he catches up with him before Patrick can disappear in the endless carpark of buses, vans and cars in varying states of decay.

"Hey," he says when he has Patrick trapped between a Miata and a flatbed truck. Patrick looks kind of like he wants to make a break for it anyway. "I wanted to—"

"I'm sorry," Patrick says before Bill can get anything else out. "I shouldn't have—you had years, if you wanted to—" Patrick flails a little. "I mean, you would have, we would have, just because it didn't occur to me until now doesn't mean—- so I'm sorry if I made this awkward and—" He stops talking because Bill's moving closer. "Bill?"

"I'm just having a weird moment,' Bill says. "Déjà vu or telepathy."

Patrick's eyes widen. "Does that run in your family too? Fuck." His expression turns a little panicked.

"No! Just the sex-change thing," Bill says. "Telepathy would kind of ridiculous, you know?" He looks at Patrick for a long moment, his slightly flushed face, the way he's definitely got a good case of sunburn going on his shoulders which is oddly endearing. He leans in slowly, telegraphing his move so clearly people in China are probably picking up on it, but Patrick still looks surprised when Bill kisses him. He puts one hand either side of Patrick's face, holding it between his hands and makes it real, makes it count.

And then he leans in and makes it dirty, his hands going down to hook into the loops of Patrick's jeans and pull him in, grinding against him and letting him feel Bill getting hard. Patrick doesn't pull back, doesn't do the fuck-that's-someone's- _dick_ flinch.

He licks at Patrick's mouth and he can feel Patrick getting hard, but that's not what convinces him. What does it is the way Patrick pushes back against him, the automatic reaction of yes, this is good and when Patrick does break the kiss, he doesn't move away.

"I thought you didn't want this," Patrick says. His hands are still on Bill's waist and he has to look up at him. Bill slides one hand around to Patrick's back pocket.

"I do. I did last night, and on and off for about the last seven years," Bill says. "I'm kind of maybe a little bit stupid about you. It means I don't always make smart decisions."

Patrick blinks behind his glasses and Bill's glad he's wearing them, glad he can see him clearly. "I... I don't really know how to take that." He looks at Bill, tilting his head back a bit so he can see his face, then lifts his head and Biill leans in and Patrick kisses him, pulling him down and he says, "You want to maybe try this again? As us?" against the skin at the corner of Bill's jaw.

Bill's nod gets lost when Patrick kiss him again

 

* * *

 

_Patrick seemed like a good bet, cute and interested but not so pushy Bill would spend the whole date smacking him down, and it's kind of reassuring that Bill's pretty sure he's got more experience than Patrick. Makes him feel a bit more confident, even if he knows intellectually that he'd probably be better off with someone who knows what they're doing first hand. But Patrick's hot and doesn't know it and Bill likes the notion that he can show him things, that he can do this, sex with a guy as a girl for the first time, and leave a good impression._

_It's just that he keeps getting distracted when he tries to get to the point. They start talking about music and Bill gets off track talking about vinyl and Green Day and studio versus live and then he's watching him sketch out drum riff and Bill's mind gets derailed looking at his hands. They're kind of awesome, maybe._

_But he's got a mission here, and Bill can concentrate if he has to, so he puts his hand out and grabs one of those moving hands, locking his fingers in to keep them still so Bill can focus. "Hey," Bill says, "I really, really want to—"_

_And then Patrick kisses him, mid-sentence and Bill's too surprised to do anything at first._

_Patrick pulls back and says, "I'm sorry, I just—"_

_"No! Don't be sorry, get back here," Bill says, leaning over and pulling him in and oh, yes, good choice, Bill obviously made the right decision here and Patrick is—mmm, Patrick's mouth and his hands on Bill's waist and he kisses kind of polite at first, which Bill didn't know was a turn on before. He wants to keep doing this, just like this, for ages, and he wants more now. He's normally better at waiting, not pushing, but—oh, Patrick's hands dip up under his shirt, cautious like he thinks Bill's going to object, and Bill presses in as close as he can._

_"I'm glad I did that," Patrick says, sounding happy and out of breath. "Uh. You want to maybe do that again some time?"_

_For a moment, Bill feels nervous, which is crazy. It's not like he's never done this before, just from the other side. And he likes Patrick, likes this, and it's stupid be nervous because it's going better than he thought it would._

_"Yeah," he says. He chews the corner of his mouth and tastes his own lipstick. "Yeah, I think I'd like that."_

 

 

 

End.


End file.
